In Accused X v. State of Maharashtra, April 2019, the Supreme Court in this case recognized post conviction mental illness as a mitigating factor to convert death penalty to life imprisonment. The SC noting that there appear to be no set disorders/disabilities for evaluating the ‘severe mental illness’ laid down ‘test of severity’ as a guiding factor for recognizing those mental illnesses which qualify for an exemption. The court noted that these disorders generally include schizophrenia, other serious psychotic disorders, and dissociative disorders with schizophrenia. Therefore, the test envisaged herein predicates that the offender needs to have a severe mental illness or disability, which simply means that a medical professional would objectively consider the illness to be most serious so that he cannot understand or comprehend the nature and purpose behind the imposition of such punishment. The notion of death penalty and the sufferance it brings along causes incapacitation and is idealised to invoke a sense of deterrence. If the accused is not able to understand the impact and purpose of his execution because of his disability, the purpose for the execution itself collapses.