116 (7) spelled out in Bachan Singh. Even for the other factors of (3) and (4) - an onus placed squarely on the state – conducting this form of psychiatric and psychological evaluation close on the heels of commission of the offence, will provide a baseline for the appellate courts to use for comparison, i.e., to evaluate the progress of the accused towards reformation, achieved during the incarceration period. 215. Next, the State, must in a time-bound manner, collect additional information pertaining to the accused. An illustrative, but not exhaustive list is as follows: a) Age b) Early family background (siblings, protection of parents, any history of violence or neglect) c) Present family background (surviving family members, whether married, has children, etc.) d) Type and level of education e) Socio-economic background (including conditions of poverty or deprivation, if any) f) Criminal antecedents (details of offence and whether convicted, sentence served, if any) g) Income and the kind of employment (whether none, or temporary or permanent etc); h) Other factors such as history of unstable social behaviour, or mental or psychological ailment(s), alienation of the individual (with reasons, if any) etc. This information should mandatorily be available to the trial court, at the sentencing stage. The accused too, should be given the same opportunity to produce evidence in rebuttal, towards establishing all mitigating circumstances.

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents