The Supreme Court widened the scope of death penalty, saying killing more than one innocent people or killing through organised crime could attract capital punishment.

The apex court said this while reversing the verdict of the Allahabad high court, which had reduced the death sentence of two men in the case of alleged murder of six of a family in 1994.

The two men were part of a six-member group that had entered a house and murdered the inmates due to a family feud.

The judges prescribed severe punishment in cases of crimes against women and the weak. "The social impact of offences against women, dacoity, kidnapping, misappropriation of public money, treason, and other offences involving moral turpitude or moral delinquency, which have a great impact on the social order and public interest, cannot be lost sight of and, per se, require exemplary treatment," they said.

"Any liberal attitude by imposing meagre sentences or taking a too sympathetic view merely on account of lapse of time in respect of such offences will be result-wise counter-productive in the long run and against societal interest," the court said.

A recent Amnesty International report said about 400 people are in Indian prisons on death row. Of these, 140 were sentenced in the past two years.

The human rights body alleged that administration of the death penalty in the country was flawed and fraught with error, observing that most sentences were based on circumstantial evidence.

Rakesh Bhatnagar/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication