The Supreme Court, through the majority opinion of Justice Nariman, upheld the sentence of death imposed upon the appellant. Justice Sanjeev Khanna dissented on the question of sentence and chose the lesser sentence of life imprisonment without remission. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Khanna noted that the Court in Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, July 1983 required two questions to be answered to determine if a case was rarest of rare. These were whether there was something uncommon about the crime which rendered life imprisonment inadequate and whether the circumstances of the crime were such that there was no alternative but to impose the death sentence. Justice Khanna opined that the five categories indicated by the court in Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, July 1983 (manner of commission of murder, motive of the murder, anti-social or abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of the crime and personality of the victim) related to the first question. The second question also has to be answered which could be done by reference to mitigating circumstances. He reiterated that the death sentence could be imposed only when the sentence for life is unquestionably foreclosed. In the facts of the case, Justice Khanna noted that the appellant had confessed to the crime before a magistrate without compulsion and this, he stated, was the first step back into society and should be treated as a mitigating circumstance. He therefore opined that the appropriate punishment in this case would be life imprisonment without remission.