SC for legal bar on remission of sentence in shocking crimes

The Supreme Court has favoured amending the penal code on life imprisonment, with no provision for commutation or remission of punishment in cases which shocked the collective conscience of society.

“It will do well in case a proper amendment under Section 53 of IPC is provided, introducing one more category of punishment - life imprisonment without commutation or remission,” a bench of Justices C K Prasad and Kurian Joseph said.

“Dr Justice V S Malimath in the report on “Committee of Reforms of Criminal Justice System”, submitted in 2003, had made such a suggestion but so far no serious steps have been taken in that regard. There could be a provision for imprisonment till death without remission or commutation,” the court added.

The court was dealing with an appeal filed by the Rajasthan government seeking restoration of death penalty awarded to a man for the offences of rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in 2002. The high court had commuted his sentence to life term in 2004.

“Heinous rape of minors followed by murder is one such instance of a crime which shocks and repulses the collective conscience of the community and the court. Such crimes arouse extreme revulsion in society. While culling out the rarest of rare cases on the basis of aggravating and mitigating factors, we are of the view that such crimes, which shock the collective conscience of the society by creating extreme revulsion in the minds of the people, are to be treated as the rarest of rare category,” the court said.

Even though the bench found commutation to life imprisonment “grossly inadequate” in the instant case, it noted that nine years had passed since the HC commuted his death penalty to life term. “We are reluctantly of the view that it would not be just and proper to alter the sentence from life imprisonment to death at this stage.”

The court, however, said the sentence for the convict would run  separately for the offences of rape, murder and destruction of evidence so as to ensure he is not released early by virtue of a remission. “It shall be ensured that the respondent will first serve the term of life imprisonment under Section 302 (murder) of IPC. In case there is any remission after 14 years, then imprisonment for a minimum period of seven years under Section 376 (rape) of IPC shall follow and thereafter three years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 (destruction of evidence) of IPC,” it said.