The Delhi High Court has reiterated that a Trial Court/ Sessions Court cannot award Life Sentence of Remainder of Natural Life.
The Division Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Mini Pushkarana while adjudicating upon an appeal noted that while Trial Court could not have qualified the imprisonment of life awarded by it to the remainder of the natural life of the appellants, the High Court can award the same sentence on consideration of the facts of the case.
Brief Facts
The dead body of a 3-4 aged year girl was reported to be found in front of a house in Ramesh Nagar, the dead body was found by Suresh who was the sweeper of MCD and was cleaning the Nala along with Shamsher Singh who took out the body and informed the police at Kirti Nagar Police Station, after the post mortem report was conducted the doctors came to the conclusion that there was the manner of the death was homicide along with sexual assault, the most mortem report clearly showed that an offence of rape was conducted with the minor child of 3 years.
Vaginal swabs, anal swabs, few hair strands, clothes of the deceased and the soil on the body all were recovered from the girl and duly sealed and handed over to the police. Among the two witnesses Ramjanam told that he was at the veer bazar, Ramesh Nagar where he saw one girl aged abou t3-5 weeping accompanied by a boy aged around 25-30 having a small beard, upon enquiring about the girl from this person, he said that she was missing and he was trying to find her parents. After this he went home and upon hearing the news of the dead girl and went to the police station, he identified the photo of the girl and made it clear that he could identify the boy if he was shown to him.
Later Jamahir was apprehended who was then identified by Ramjanam at DDU Hospital, after this Jamahir also disclosed the identity of two more victims which were Raj Kumar and Birbal. After this
their blood and semen samples were collected which were matching with the samples which were earlier collected from the deceased.
An argument was put forward after this that Ramjanam is a planted witness and is not reliable as he gave the description of Jamahir on point, it was also argued that there were no eye witnesses and
Raj Kumar did not run away when he was being arrested outside the police station, the court turned down this by saying that the DNA samples could not have been fabricated as they were at a secure place and no tampering was found.
It is in the light of these facts that the Trial Court awarded the sentence of life imprisonment for the remainder of the natural life to the three appellants. After this the court looked at the judgment of Union of India Vs. V. Sriharan @ Murugan & Ors., 2015 Latest Caselaw 783 SC Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court where the court held that the power to impose a modified punishment providing for any specific term of incarceration or till the end of the convict’s life as an alternate to death penalty can be exercised only by the High Court and the Supreme Court and not by any other inferior Court. Even in Gauri Shankar Vs. State of Punjab, 2021 Latest Caselaw 73 SC, Hon’ble Supreme Court took the same view following the Constitution Bench decision in V.Sriharan.
High Court's Observation
The issue that arose before the Court was whether only in a case where the Trial Court awards death sentence and instead of confirming the death sentence can the High Court modify the sentence to life imprisonment to the remainder of life or a definite term or even in a case where life imprisonment has been awarded by the Trial Court?
The High Court in exercise of its appellate jurisdiction can direct that the life imprisonment would be for the remainder of the life or a definite term. In Swamy Shraddananda (2), Hon’ble Supreme Court further held that it is equally well settled that Section 57 of the IPC does not, in any way, limit the punishment of imprisonment for life to a term of twenty years. Section 57 of the IPC is only for calculating fractions of term of imprisonment and provides that imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for 20 years.
It was further held on the facts of a case, a death sentence awarded by Trial Court may be excessive and unduly harsh whereas a life imprisonment which subject to remission normally works out to be
a term of 14 years, would be grossly disproportionate and inadequate. Thus, it is within these two categories that a specific category has been carved out wherein the Courts can award a particular
period of the natural life as the sentence.
Though the learned Trial Court could not have qualified the imprisonment of life awarded by it to the remainder of the natural life of the appellants as held by the Constitution Bench in V.Sriharan
(supra) as also in Gauri Shankar (supra), this Court though setting aside the said order in exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, can award the same sentence on consideration of the facts of the case.
The court used the judgment of Sanjay Kumar Valmimi Vs. State in which it was stated that section 45 of the Indian Penal Code defines ‘life’ as ‘the life of a human being, unless the contrary appears
from the context’. Therefore, imprisonment for life means the natural life of a human being. The power of the appropriate government to remit a sentence of imprisonment of life as conferred by
clause (b) of Section 433 read with Section 433-A CrPC, cannot mean that the life imprisonment awarded by a Court of competent jurisdiction is not the natural life.
Now, in the present case, the three appellants have been convicted for the gang rape and murder of a minor aged 3 years, thereby brutally mutilating her private parts and smothering her. In the
present case death sentence has not been awarded by the learned Trial Court. However, the sentence of life which would ordinarily be upto fourteen years after remissions would be highly inadequate, unjust and unfair to the victim. Further sentence of life being a sentence for the natural life reserving the right of the executive to grant remissions, this Court in view of the law laid down in V.Sriharan (supra) and Swamy Shraddananda (2) (supra) would be competent to award the sentence for remainder of the life to the appellants. Hence, imprisonment of life for the remainder of life to
the appellants would be an appropriate sentence in the facts of the case.
Consequently, upholding the conviction of the appellants for the offences punishable under Sections 376(2)(g) IPC, 302 IPC, 377 IPC and 201 IPC, and of appellant Jamahir for offence punishable under Section 363 IPC, though the order on sentence to the extent the court directed the appellants to undergo imprisonment for the remainder of life as passed by the Trial Court is set aside for offences punishable under Sections 376(2) and 302 IPC, however, in exercise of its appellate jurisdiction and in view of diabolic and brutal manner in which rape with murder of a three year old child was committed, the awarded the same sentence i.e. remainder of the life for offences punishable under Sections 376(2) and 302 IPC.
Case Title: Jamahir Alias Jawahar Vs The state government of NCT of Delhi
Case Details: CRL.A. 135/2022, CRL.A.183/2021 & CRL.A.228/2021
Coram: Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Mini Pushkarana
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