right to life and equality and guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. Moreover, the uncontrolled and unguided arbitrary discretion in the judges to impose capital punishment violates Article 14 of the Indian Constitution and the petitioners contended that the procedure for consideration of circumstances in order to pronounce finding and reasoning to make judicial decision between capital punishment and life imprisonment is not available under CrPC, 1898, therefore it violated Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of India refused to accept the argument and held that the death sentence is pronounced after detailed recording and evaluation of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, thus such procedure justifies the imposition of capital punishment and does not violate Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Moreover, the criticism of judge-centric or wide discretion on the judges on the fixation of the punishment is subject to the scrutiny of the superior judges and premised on the well recognized judicial principles. The judgment also discussed the US Supreme Court Decision in Furman v. Georgia, October 1971 where the US Supreme Court struck down the death sentence scheme as it violated the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution as being cruel and unusual punishment. But, the Supreme Court of India refused to accept the reasoning and stated that there is no rational basis for concluding the death sentence as unconstitutional because the Indian Constitution does not have an equivalent to the Eighth Amendment. Landmark cases on constitutionality of the death penalty Since the incorporation of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, while imposing the death sentence, the courts were obliged to provide 'special reasons' for not imposing the death sentence. The true departure from death sentence as a norm to an exception came after the introduction of Code of Criminal Procedure re-enacted in 1973. The CrPC 1973 introduced Section 354(3), the section mandated that judge must provide 'special reasons' for inflicting or imposing the death sentence. Also, the CrPC 1973 introduced the Section 235(2), which allowed the post-conviction hearing on sentencing which drastically changed the jurisprudence allowing a careful evaluation and analysis of circumstances revolving around the jurisprudence of death sentence. Rajendra Prasad v. State of Uttar Pradesh, February 1979 Post the re-enactment of CrPC 1973, there was ambiguity in the jurisprudential understanding of 'special reasons' for imposing the death sentence. The Supreme Court in Rajendra Prasad v. State of Uttar Pradesh, February 1979 dealt