Bar to impose harsher penalty retrospectively, clear & absolute: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said the constitutional bar against retrospective imposition of a harsher penalty under Article 20(1) is clear and absolute, as it upheld the conviction of a man in a sexual assault case of a female child but modified his sentence to life term instead of imprisonment till the remainder of natural life.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta noted the sentence of “imprisonment for life, meaning remainder of natural life,” as per the amended provision, did not exist in the statutory framework on May 20, 2019, the date of the incident. 

"Under the unamended Section 6 of the POCSO Act, the maximum punishment permissible was imprisonment for life in its conventional sense and not imprisonment till the remainder of natural life," the bench said.

The imprisonment of life normally extends to 14 years in jail.

In the case, the court said, the trial court, in applying the enhanced sentence introduced by the 2019 Amendment to Section 6 of the POCSO Act, has effectively subjected the appellant, Satauram Mandavi, to a punishment greater than that which was permissible under the law in force at the time of commission of the offence which is clearly violative of the bar contained in Article 20(1) of the Constitution.

The appellant challenged the validity of the Chhattisgarh High Court's judgment of September 5, 2023, which dismissed his plea against the trial court's November 30, 2021, judgment of conviction and sentence for committing rape upon a five-year-old girl on May 20, 2019.

The court partly allowed the appeal, modifying the sentence to that of rigorous imprisonment for life, along with Rs 10,000 fine.