Karnataka to ''pressurise'' centre to notify Krishna Tribunal award: CM Siddaramaiah
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said that the government will demand the Centre to issue a gazette notification for the award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2, at a meeting called by the Union Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil next week.
This will facilitate the use of waters allocated to the state and allow for an increase in the height of the Almatti dam, Siddharamaiah added.
He said that the state government will assert in the meeting that it will raise the dam height to 524 meters as there is no interim order by the Supreme Court.
The Jal Shakti Minister will chair a meeting on May 7 with the water resources ministers of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana to discuss the report-cum-award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2.
The CM chaired a meeting with Deputy Chief Minister and Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, along with other ministers, legal experts, and officials, to decide on the state government's stance.
"Ahead of May 7 meeting, we consulted with the legal team to discuss the state’s position. Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2 order was out on December 30, 2010, and subsequent orders in 2013. Yet, the central government has not issued the notification," Siddaramaiah said.
Speaking to reporters after the consultation, he noted that he and Shivakumar had met the central minister regarding this matter.
"The Union Minister has now called a meeting, and in that meeting, we will demand that the notification be issued immediately. The second tribunal order allocated 173 TMC of water for use, and to store and utilise this amount of water, the dam height must be increased from 519 meters to 524 meters. For this, the gazette notification must happen," he said.
Noting that Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which were divided in 2014, had filed an application stating that the dam height cannot be increased without the gazette notification, the CM said. "They may divide the water allocated to them among themselves, but we must utilise the water allocated to us," he added.
"We will demand that the gazette notification be issued. We have already made this demand, and we will reiterate it at the meeting. Furthermore, we will clearly state that, in the absence of an interim order by the Supreme Court, we will increase the dam height to 524 meters," he added.
Expressing happiness over the Union Minister’s call for the meeting regarding the notification of the tribunal award, Shivakumar said, "We have already wasted 15 years since the tribunal award, so we are demanding and appealing to the central government and courts to issue the gazette notification because the cost of construction is increasing every year, and water is being wasted."
"We are pressuring the central government. I hope they understand. We appeal to the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra on this issue, as no one will be affected," he added.
Shivakumar said an all-party meeting will be convened after the May 7 meeting with C R Patil.
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High courts upheld only 8 per cent of death sentences; SC confirms none in recent years: Report
New Delhi (PTI): Highlighting that a high acquittal rate of death row convicts by the Supreme Court and high courts demonstrates a pattern of "erroneous or unjustified convictions", a study of 10 years of death penalty data has revealed that the top court did not confirm any death sentences in recent years.
The study by Square Circle Clinic, a criminal laws advocacy group with the NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad, found that an overwhelming majority of death sentences imposed by trial courts did not withstand scrutiny at higher judicial levels. Acquittals far outnumbered confirmations at both the high courts and Supreme Court levels.
According to the report, the trial courts across India awarded 1,310 death sentences in 822 cases between 2016 and 2025. High courts considered 842 of these sentences in confirmation proceedings but upheld only 70 or 8.31 per cent.
In contrast, 258 death sentences (30.64 per cent) resulted in acquittals. The study noted that the acquittal rate at the high court level was nearly four times the confirmation rate.
Data showed that of the 70 death sentences confirmed by high courts, the Supreme Court decided 38 and did not uphold a single one. The apex court has confirmed no death sentences between 2023 and 2025.
"Wrongful or erroneous or unjustified convictions, then, are not random or freak accidents in the Indian criminal justice system. The data indicates they are a persistent and serious systemic concern," the report said.
Over the last decade, high courts adjudicated 1,085 death sentences in 647 cases, confirming only 106 (9.77 per cent). During this period, 326 persons in 191 cases, were acquitted.
The report attributed low confirmation rates to the appellate judiciary’s concerns regarding failures in due process. "This coincides with increased Supreme Court scrutiny of safeguards at the sentencing stage," the report said.
Of the 153 death sentences decided by the apex court over the last decade, the accused were acquitted in 38 cases. In 2025 alone, high courts overturned death sentences into acquittals in 22 out of 85 cases (over 25 per cent). The same year, Supreme Court acquitted accused persons in more than half of the death penalty cases it decided (10 out of 19), the report said.
The study highlighted that 364 persons who were ultimately acquitted "should not even have been convicted and unjustifiably suffered the trauma of death row". It added that such failures extend beyond adjudication and reflect serious lapses in investigation and prosecution.
The question of remedies for wrongful convictions remains pending before the Supreme Court. In September 2025, three persons acquitted by the apex court filed writ petitions seeking compensation from the state and argued that their wrongful convictions violated their fundamental right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.
"In 2022, the Supreme Court crystallised a sentencing process in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh , and mandated all courts to follow those guidelines before imposing or confirming a death sentence," the report read.
In 2025, the apex court held in Vasanta Sampat Dupare v. Union of India that death penalty sentencing hearings form part of the right to a fair trial and stressed that capital punishment can be imposed only after a constitutionally compliant sentencing process.
"However, even at the high courts whether the process mandated under Manoj is being complied with is in doubt,” the report said.
