A five-judge Constitutional bench, headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu, said that any such situation where leniency will be shown in cases involving hardened criminals would endanger the lives of thousands of innocent people in the country.
"...It is the hard reality that the State machinery is not able to protect or guarantee the life and liberty of common man. In this scenario, if any further lenience is shown in the matter of imposition of sentence, at least in respect of capital punishment or life imprisonment, it can only be said that that will only lead to further chaos and there will be no rule of law but only anarchy will rule the country enabling the criminals and their gangs to dictate terms," it said.
"Such hardened criminals are in the good books of several powerful men of ill-gotten wealth and power mongers for whom they act as paid assassins and Goondas. Lawlessness is the order of the day.
"Having got the experience of dealing with cases involving major crimes, we can also authoritatively say that in most of the cases, even the kith and kin, close relatives, friends, neighbors and passersby who happen to witness the occurrence are threatened and though they initially give statements to the police, invariably turn hostile, apparently because of the threat meted out to them by the hardened and professional criminals and gangsters," the bench said.