113 “7.1.6 Numerous committee reports as well as judgments of the Supreme Court have recognised that the administration of criminal justice in the country is in deep crisis. Lack of resources, outdated modes of investigation, over-stretched police force, ineffective prosecution, and poor legal aid are some of the problems besetting the system. Death penalty operates within this context and therefore suffers from the same structural and systemic impediments. The administration of capital punishment thus remains fallible and vulnerable to misapplication. The vagaries of the system also operate disproportionately against the socially and economically marginalised who may lack the resources to effectively advocate their rights within an adversarial criminal justice system.” 208. However, despite over four decades since Bachan Singh there has been little to no policy-driven change, towards formulating a scheme or system that elaborates how mitigating circumstances are to be collected, for the court’s consideration. Scarce information about the accused at the time of sentencing, severely disadvantages the process of considering mitigating circumstances. It is clarified that mere mention of these circumstances by counsel, serve no purpose – rather, they must be connected to the possibility of reformation and assist principled judicial reasoning (as required under S. 235(2) CrPC). Constrained by this lack of assistance, this court (as mentioned above) in Rajesh Kumar has even gone so far as to hold that the very fact that the state had not given any evidence to show that the convict was beyond reform and rehabilitation was a mitigating circumstance, in itself. 209. The lack of forthcoming information has led to attempts by the courts, to look backwards – sometimes many years after the crime has been committed – to evaluate on the one hand, circumstances that could not have been paused in time, and on the other those which can be captured, but for which there exists no frame of reference from the past, for comparison. This inconsistency in some courts calling for reports, while others fail to – further contributes to our patchwork jurisprudence on capital sentencing, and in turn undermines the equality principle and due process protection that Santosh Bariyar recognises as existing, in favour of death row convicts.