Overview
- A Muzaffarnagar fast-track court led by Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar delivered 22 death sentences across 10 cases between April 6 and August 13, 2026, according to court and prosecution accounts.
- Those 22 rulings raise Diwakar’s reported career total to 35 death sentences after earlier verdicts in Bareilly, making his record an outlier for a single trial judge.
- Under BNSS Section 407(1), every death sentence from a sessions court must be sent to the High Court for confirmation before it can be carried out, so these trial rulings now begin a formal appellate review process.
- The pace and range of the sentences — covering murders, a highway robbery-murder, and old cases stretching back decades — have prompted legal debate over whether the constitutional 'rarest of rare' threshold was properly applied and left victims’ families and local activists divided in their reactions.
- Diwakar’s earlier national-profile actions, including a 2022 Gyanvapi videographic survey order and a 2024 remark praising the UP chief minister that the Allahabad High Court expunged, add political and communal sensitivity to the High Court reviews and are likely to shape public scrutiny and media coverage going forward.