demonstrates the normative and procedural gaps in death penalty sentencing framework that have been the legacy of the Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, May 1980 judgment. Death Penalty Annual Statistics Report Since 2016, Project 39A at the National Law University Delhi annually releases a death penalty statistics report. The report covers movements in the death row population in India as well as political and legal developments in the administration of the death penalty and the criminal justice system. The 162 death sentences imposed by trial courts in 2018 is the highest in a calendar year since 2000. The number dropped to 102 in 2019. Executions since Independence Prisons and other government departments don't have accurate records of the number of persons executed in India. An absolute lack of coordination among different official sources has hindered the collection of accurate data on the subject. Despite these limitations, Project 39A has attempted to curate a list of people executed in India. This number is, however, significantly lower than the actual number of people executed, as per data from the Law Commission of India's 35th Report which states a number above 1000 between the years 1947 to 1967. This fact speaks to larger concerns with data on the criminal justice system in India, when the country doesn't even have the records of the number of people on whom has been sentenced to death. On 27 April 1995, Auto Shankar was hanged in Salem Central Jail at Salem, Tamil Nadu for murder of 6 people. On 27 May 1997, Kamta Pasad Tiwary was hanged in Jabalpur Central Jail for raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in 1991. On 14 August 2004 at Alipore Central Jail, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged for the murder (following a rape) of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh at her apartment residence in Bhowanipore, West Bengal on 5 March 1990. While the mercy petition of Chatterjee was pending before President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, support for the rejection of the mercy petition as well as his execution was drummed up in West Bengal by various political groups and organizations. The mercy plea was rejected on 4 August 2004. Before the execution of Ajmal Kasab due to his role in 26/11 terrorist attacks, people from across the globe wrote to President Pranab Mukherjee to inform his family and the public of the rejection of the mercy petition and about any scheduled date