OMA @ Omprakash & Anr Vs State of Tamil Nadu

Hon'ble Supreme Court of India -on 18.12.12- in this case Session Court had observed, “In this case, the accused came from a state about
2000 k.m. from our state and they did not think that
the victims were also human like them but they thought only about the well being of their family and
their own life and committed the fear of death amongst the common public of our state by committing robbery and murder for about 11 years.
Therefore, this court is of the opinion that the death sentence that would be imposed on them would create a fear amongst the criminals who commit such crime and further this case is a rarest of rare
case that calls for the imposition of death sentence.” -
The ‘special reasons’ weighed with the trial judge to say the least, was only one’s predilection or
inclination to award death sentence, purely judge-centric.
Learned judge has not discussed the aggravating or mitigating
circumstances of this case, the approach was purely ‘crimecentric’.... We are really surprised to note the “special reasons” stated by the trial judge in para 36(b) of the judgment. We fail to see why we import the criminal jurisprudence of America or the Arab
countries to our system. Learned trial judge speaks of sentence like “lynching” and described that it has attained legal form in America. Lynching means kill someone for an alleged offence
without a legal trial, especially by hanging....
We are also not concerned with the question whether the
criminals have come from 20 km away or 2000 km away.
Learned judge says that they have come to “our state”, forgetting the fact that there is nothing like ‘our state’ or ‘your state’. Such parochial attitude shall not influence or sway a judicial mind.
Learned judge has further stated, since the accused persons had come from a far away state, about 2000 km to “our state” for
committing robbery and murder, death sentence would be
imposed on them. Learned judge has adopted a very strange
reasoning, needs fine tuning and proper training....
Learned trial judge has also opined that the imposition of death sentence under Section 396 of the IPC is the only weapon in the hands of judiciary under the prevailing law to help to eliminate the crime. Judiciary has neither any weapon in its hands nor uses it to eliminate crimes. Duty of the judge is to decide cases which come before him in accordance with the constitution and laws, following the settled judicial precedents. A
Judge is also part of the society where he lives and also conscious of what is going on in the society. Judge has no weapon or sword. Judge’s greatest strength is the trust and confidence of the people, whom he serves. We may point out that clear reasoning and analysis are the basic requirements in a judicial decision.
Judicial decision is being perceived by the parties and by the society in general as being the result of a correct application of the legal rules, proper evaluation of facts based on settled judicial
precedents and judge shall not do anything which will undermine the faith of the people.