should weigh with the Court when it deals with the collective conscience of the people or public opinion. After all, the society’s perspective is generally formed by the emotionally charged narratives. Such narratives need not necessarily be legally correct, properly informed or procedurally proper. As stated in Report No. 262 of the Law Commission …….“the Court plays a counter-majoritarian role in protecting individual rights against majoritarian impulses. Public opinion in a given case may go against the values of rule of law and constitutionalism by which the Court is nonetheless bound” and as held by this Court in Santosh Bariyar (supra) public opinion or people’s perception of a crime is …….“neither an objective circumstance relating to crime nor to the criminal”. In this context, we may also express our concern on the legality and propriety of the people engaging in a “trial” prior to the process of trial by the court. It has almost become a trend for the investigating agency to present their version and create a cloud in the collective conscience of the society regarding the crime and the criminal. This undoubtedly puts mounting pressure on the courts at all the stages of the trial and certainly they have a tendency to interfere with the due course of justice. 25. Till the time death penalty exists in the statute books, the burden to be satisfied by the Judge in awarding this punishment 28