The Supreme Court has opened up a new dimension in the assessment of death row prisoners. In a landmark judgment, the court made psychological evaluation mandatory for convicts likely to be awarded capital punishment, together with a report of the prisoner’s conduct. Indicating continuity with the 1980 Supreme Court ruling that reserved capital punishment for the rarest of rare cases and brought into consideration aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the latest order considered the mental state of the convict part of this larger set of factors needed to determine the suitability of the death sentence. The court directed that state governments and prison authorities should ensure that the head of a government medical care institution forms a team including a psychiatrist and a psychologist to evaluate death row prisoners. The team’s report, together with the probation officer’s report about the prisoner’s conduct, his or her work during incarceration and other required details should be presented in court before the lawyers made their submissions, not at a later date as is the convention now. The judge heading the bench, Uday U. Lalit, had delivered a series of judgments emphasizing the nature of the assistance that must be given to the court by other institutions when capital punishment was being considered. The latest judgment clarifies the lines along which such assistance shall be given.

While the subject of psychological evaluation ties in with the theme of mitigating circumstances earlier enunciated by the Supreme Court, it inaugurates a dimension that resonates beyond the death row. The mental state of Indian prisoners, from detainees and those under trial to those convicted, but not of capital crimes, is unlikely to have figured as a possible subject of assessment by a system that is barely interested in addressing their everyday needs or looking after their health. The Supreme Court order projects prisoners as human beings, assessing whose mental state could help in awarding the most fitting penalty. Fitting in this context would mean both just and humane, leaving open the route to reform. This could pertain to all prisoners, not least to young people incarcerated in juvenile correctional homes. Psychological evaluation entails a change of approach and, therefore, a changed emphasis in the training of prison staff. It is an important step in modernizing the justice system.