India, Oct. 5 -- The death penalty can be imposed only in cases where the possibility of a convict's reformation is completely ruled out, the Supreme Court has held, underlining that the possibility of reform cannot be presumed absent merely because a crime is exceptionally brutal or grotesque.

According to a bench of justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and Vijay Bishnoi, the prosecution must establish that life imprisonment is unquestionably inadequate as an alternative to capital punishment, and that the death sentence must be reserved for cases where the alternative of imprisonment for life is demonstrably foreclosed.

The ruling highlighted the distinction between the gravity of a crime and the separate question of whether the person...