Life imprisonment means till death: Supreme Court
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that “life imprisonment” means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life, and that a sentence expressly stated as “life imprisonment without remission or parole” must be served until death.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih dismissed a batch of writ petitions filed by four groups of convicts, who had challenged such sentences as unconstitutional and contrary to statutory remission provisions.
The petitioners argued that under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, only two punishments are recognised for murder — death penalty and life imprisonment — and that sentencing a person to imprisonment for their entire natural life without any remission is not contemplated by law. They also contended that such orders nullify the government’s power to grant remission under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Rejecting these submissions, the court said the issue has already been conclusively settled by a five-judge Constitution Bench in Union of India v. V. Sriharan (2016), which upheld the validity of natural-life imprisonment.
“Since a five-judge Constitution Bench has clearly held that imposing imprisonment for the entire natural life is valid, there is no scope to argue before a two-judge bench that such sentences are unconstitutional or violate rights under Section 432 CrPC. Such attempts can only be described as an abuse of the legal process,” the bench observed while dismissing the petitions.
The judgment reaffirms that where a court specifically imposes “life imprisonment without remission or parole”, no remission is applicable and the sentence extends up to the end of the convict’s natural life.