Supreme Court: a trial court cannot impose life imprisonment without remission on its own

Two men convicted of murdering a woman and her two young daughters, under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, had been sentenced by the Trial Court to rigorous imprisonment for life with a direction that they 'remain in prison till rest of their life' — that is, life imprisonment excluding the ordinary remission regime. The Supreme Court held that Section 302 IPC does not itself define imprisonment for life as imprisonment without any possibility of remission; an ordinary life sentence remains subject to the statutory remission and commutation powers of the appropriate Government under Sections 432 to 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Following the Constitution Bench in Union of India v. V. Sriharan and the 'special category' sentence recognised earlier in Swamy Shraddananda, the Court held that only a Constitutional Court, exercising its special sentencing powers, can impose a sentence excluding remission for a fixed term or for the convict's whole natural life; a Sessions Court has no such power, since it cannot curtail the executive's statutory remission power under the Code.

The Trial Court's direction was accordingly held incompetent, though the conviction itself was upheld. Exercising its own special sentencing power, the Supreme Court substituted a sentence of 25 years' rigorous imprisonment without remission in place of the incompetent direction.