The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a sessions court, while convicting an accused of murder, cannot order that the convict remain in prison for the rest of their natural life.
The verdict dealt with a vexatious legal question as to whether a trial court, while awarding the life imprisonment to a convict in a murder case under section 302 of the IPC, can hand down the sentence specifying that the convict will remain in jail for remainder of his life without the benefits of statutory regime of remission and commutation.
A bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi, referring to verdicts, said, “Although life imprisonment denotes imprisonment for the remainder of the life of convict, the statutory powers of remission and commutation cannot be curtailed by a Sessions Court and thus, the power to impose a special category sentence of life imprisonment without remission belongs to the Constitutional Courts and not to the Sessions Court.”
The bench also said that the power to grant remission and commutation under the Code of Criminal Procedure cannot be curtailed by the sessions court.
It said that a direction by “the sessions court that imprisonment for life shall continue till the end of the natural life of the convict is in conflict with the statutory scheme”.
Dealing with the facts of the case, the bench upheld the conviction of a man and another convict in a triple-murder case and substituted the sentence of imprisonment for remainder of life with rigorous imprisonment for 25 years without the benefit of statutory remission.
“We are of the view that there is no doubt that the Trial Court was competent to impose the punishment of imprisonment for life upon the appellants for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC. However, at the same time, the Trial Court was not competent to impose a special category sentence that the appellants ‘to remain in prison till rest of their life’, which in substance and effect, excludes the statutory power of remission or commutation,” the verdict said.
The judgment was delivered in the criminal appeal filed by Naval Kishore and co-convict, arising from the killing of a woman and her two minor daughters in Ludhiana, Punjab in December 2009.
The case arose from the murder of Pinki alias Simran, her eight-year-old daughter Divya and five-year-old daughter Pooja at Ludhiana.
The trial court, by its 2014 judgment, convicted the accused and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for life and directed them “to remain in prison till rest of their life”, besides imposing a fine of Rs 2,500 each.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed their appeal on December 12, 2022 and affirmed both the conviction and sentence. The top court also affirmed the conviction of the appellants under Section 302 of the IPC.
“However, the sentence imposed upon the appellants by the Trial Court, which was affirmed by the High Court, is modified to the extent indicated... The direction requiring the appellants ‘to remain in prison till the rest of their life’ is hereby set aside and in substitution thereof, both the appellants are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 25 years, without the benefit of any statutory remission,” the apex court said.
Before the top court, the key issue was whether a trial court was competent to impose, in addition to life imprisonment under Section 302 IPC, a direction that the convicts remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives.
(With inputs from PTI)
