Advanced International Journal for Research

E-ISSN: 3048-7641   •   Impact Factor: 9.11

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Call for Paper Volume 7, Issue 2 (March-April 2026) Submit your research before last 3 days of April to publish your research paper in the issue of March-April.
Submit Research Paper Join as a Reviewer

Plagiarism is checked by the leading plagiarism checker TurnItIn

Call for Paper

Volume 7 Issue 2
March-April 2026

Submit your research paper

Indexing Partners
Academia Advanced Sciences Index Bielefeld Academic Search Engine CiteSeer DRJI Google Scholar Independent Search Engine & Directory Network ISI (International Scientific Indexing) Issuu Mendeley Research Networks
RefSeek ResearcherId - Thomson Reuters ResearchGate Scirus Scribd Semantic Scholar UTeM - Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Wiki for Call for Papers WorldCat Zenodo

An Analysis of the Rarest of Rare Doctrine: A Retributive Perspective on Capital Punishment in India

Author(s) Ms. Jini Salina Khan, Ms. Anusree S
Country India
Abstract This paper revisits the “rarest of rare” doctrine through a retributive lens, drawing on classical and contemporary principles of international and national law. This research centres its arguments on the judgments given in Manoj vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, where long-standing problems of arbitrariness and inadequate consideration of mitigating factors have been openly acknowledged. The 2025 decision of the Constitutional Court of Kyrgyz Republic rejected the reintroduction of the death penalty, which reflects a growing judicial commitment to the right to life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The paper questions the nature of the “rarest of rare” doctrine, from a safeguard to a more crime-focused, emotionally charged standard that prioritises societal conscience over the offender’s individual moral culpability. The core concern explored through the paper is the evolving approach behind the “rarest of rare” doctrine and its application through retributive justice, which rests on proportionality and desert, and whether it remains consistent with the right to equality and the right to life, which provides strict protection from arbitrariness while sentencing the death penalty. The findings reveal that the “rarest of rare” doctrine often operates as expressive retribution rather than a principled retributive threshold, resulting in inconsistent application and diminished attention to individualized culpability. The paper concludes that the doctrine, in its present form, fails to meet contemporary constitutional and international legal standards and argues that judicial abolition through doctrinal reform is a more coherent and principled response than continued reliance on a retributively unstable framework for capital punishment.
Keywords Capital Punishment, Death penalty, Rarest of Rare, Retributive Justice.
Field Sociology > Administration / Law / Management
Published In Volume 7, Issue 2, March-April 2026
Published On 2026-03-16
View / Download PDF File

Share this



E-ISSN 3048-7641
CrossRef

CrossRef DOI is assigned to each research paper published in our journal.

AIJFR DOI prefix is
10.63363/aijfr

Downloads
Research Paper Format Copyright Permission Form and Undertaking Form Cover Page Vol 7 Isu 1Cover Page Vol 6 Isu 6Cover Page Vol 6 Isu 5

All research papers published on this website are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, and all rights belong to their respective authors/researchers.

CC-BY-SA Open Access

About AIJFR
Fees & Payment
Current Issue
Publication Archive 		Submit Research Paper
Track Submission Status
Publication Guidelines
Publication Ethics
Peer Review & Plagiarism 		Join as a Reviewer
Editors & Reviewers
Reviewer Referral Program
Get Reviewer Membership Certi. 		Website/Journal Policies
Usage Policy
Content Policies
Privacy Policy
Contact Us +91-9898-79-39-59 editor@aijfr.com