The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of sentences directing imprisonment for the remainder of a convict’s natural life and dismissed four writ petitions filed by convicts whose death sentences had earlier been commuted to life imprisonment till the end of their natural lives, holding that such punishment is firmly supported by binding precedent and does not violate constitutional or statutory rights.
The Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Augustine George Masih held that the petitions were misconceived and amounted to an attempt to reopen legal questions that had already been conclusively settled by a Constitution Bench in Union of India v. V. Sriharan (2016). The Court observed that a sentence of life imprisonment ordinarily means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s life unless validly remitted under constitutional or statutory powers.
The lead petition was filed by Ramasrey @ Fakkad, who had originally been sentenced to death for offences under Sections 364A, 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code. The Allahabad High Court had modified the death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life, and his subsequent challenge before the Supreme Court had been withdrawn. He later approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 contending that the IPC recognizes only two punishments for murder—death or life imprisonment—and that a sentence directing imprisonment for the remainder of natural life was unknown to law and therefore unconstitutional.
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The remaining petitions were filed by Chander Kant Jha, Atbir Singh, and Sarabjit Singh along with two co-convicts, all of whom had similarly challenged either judicial orders or Presidential commutation orders that directed imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives without remission. They argued that such sentences defeated their statutory right to seek remission under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that Parliament had expressly provided such punishment only for certain sexual offences through later amendments.
Before considering the merits, the Supreme Court examined whether the writ petitions were maintainable under Article 32 of the Constitution.
The Bench reiterated that although Article 32 is itself a fundamental right and forms part of the Constitution’s basic structure, it cannot be used as a shortcut to bypass ordinary legal remedies or to reopen issues already settled by authoritative judicial pronouncements. The Court emphasized that prisoners undoubtedly retain the right to approach constitutional courts for enforcement of fundamental rights, but such jurisdiction cannot be invoked merely because they disagree with the sentence imposed upon them.
The Court also rejected the challenge to Presidential commutation orders.
It observed that where the President or Governor exercises constitutional powers under Articles 72 or 161, courts do not sit in appeal over such executive decisions. Judicial review is confined to limited grounds such as mala fides, arbitrariness, non-application of mind, consideration of irrelevant material, or exclusion of relevant considerations.
Since none of these grounds had been established by the petitioners, the Court held that it could not independently modify sentences that had already been altered by the President in exercise of constitutional clemency powers.
Rejecting the principal constitutional challenge, the Bench referred extensively to the Constitution Bench judgment in Union of India v. V. Sriharan, as well as the earlier three-Judge Bench decision in Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka.
The Court observed that the legal position is no longer open to debate. Under Sections 45 and 53 of the IPC, life imprisonment signifies imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life. The Constitution Bench had already upheld the validity of a special category of sentence whereby, in exceptionally grave cases, courts may substitute the death penalty with imprisonment for the remainder of natural life and direct that the sentence remain beyond the scope of ordinary statutory remission.
According to the Bench, once a Constitution Bench has conclusively declared such sentences to be constitutionally valid, a two-Judge Bench cannot revisit or question that legal position.
Addressing the argument based on Section 432 of the CrPC, the Supreme Court clarified that statutory remission and constitutional clemency operate in separate fields.
The Court explained that where a court simply awards life imprisonment, the statutory powers of remission ordinarily remain available. However, in those exceptional cases where courts consciously impose imprisonment for the remainder of natural life without remission because of the gravity of the offence, such restriction has already been upheld by the Constitution Bench.
The Bench held that removal of the statutory remission benefit in these rare cases does not violate the Constitution because the sentence itself is imposed only after careful judicial consideration of the seriousness of the crime and the inadequacy of an ordinary life sentence.
The Supreme Court expressed surprise that the petitioners had sought to challenge an issue already authoritatively settled by a five-Judge Constitution Bench.
The Bench observed that the petitions amounted to misuse, if not abuse, of the judicial process because the very constitutional and statutory arguments advanced had already been expressly rejected in V. Sriharan.
The Court noted that neither petitioner had even exhausted available statutory or constitutional remedies by seeking remission before the competent authorities. Consequently, no case for entertaining the writ petitions under Article 32 was made out.
As regards Atbir Singh and the three Punjab convicts, whose death sentences had already been commuted by the President to imprisonment for the remainder of natural life without remission, the Court held that none of the recognized grounds for judicial review of clemency decisions had been established.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed that life imprisonment ordinarily means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life. Courts are constitutionally empowered, in exceptionally grave cases, to substitute the death penalty with imprisonment for the remainder of natural life without ordinary remission. Judicial review of Presidential and Governor’s clemency powers remains extremely limited. Article 32 cannot be invoked to reopen questions already conclusively decided by a Constitution Bench.
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