A Bench of Justices UU Lalit, Ravindra Bhat and PS Narasimha observed that currently the probation officer undertakes this task, but many a time, the analysis and the report by the probation officer does not consider the complete profile of the accused and may be dependent upon the interviews which the probation officer may have had almost at the fag end of the trial.
Hence, the Court opined that aside from the probation officer, if someone from the defence side is given the facility of interviewing the accused right at the beginning of the trial, a comprehensive analysis can then be projected at a stage when the matter is considered from the standpoint of whether death sentence be imposed or not.
To consider these aspects, the Court converted an application filed by anti-death penalty body, Project 39A of National Law University, Delhi into a separate writ petition.
It also issued notice to Attorney General KK Venugopal and the Member Secretary of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), in the matter.
Further, it appointed Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, assisted by Advocate K Parameshwar, as Amicus Curiae in the matter.
Source: Barandbench
