Swamy Shraddananda v. State of Karnataka

SUPREME  COURT  RULING:

·       imprisonment for life may
mean anything from imprisonment for 14 years to imprisonment till the end of natural
life

·       In this case the Supreme
Court ordered imprisonment for life with the additional direction that he shall
not be released from prison till the rest of his life

Delhi Law Academy Jaipur presents below for
aspirants of Rajasthan Judicial Service (RJS), DJS, PCS (J) and other Judicial Services throughout India a very important judgment of the Supreme Court of India on an extended interpretation of the punishment of life imprisonment.

Presented below: Summarized
version [by Delhi Law Academy Jaipur] of the Supreme Court Judgment in the
case of Swamy Shraddananda\@Murali Monahar 
v.  State of Karnataka

Original
language of the judgment has been maintained; it has not been disturbed or replaced.

This
voluminous judgment has been summarized in just about 4 pages by Delhi Law
Academy while retaining the original language and original content.

**J U D G M E N T**

1.     Death to a cold blooded
murderer or life, albeit subject to severe restrictions of personal liberty, is
the vexed question that once again arises before this court. A verdict of
death would cut the matter cleanly, apart from cutting short the life of the
condemned person. But a verdict of imprisonment for life is likely to give rise
to certain questions. (Life after all is full of questions!). How would the
sentence of imprisonment  for life work out in actuality? The Court may
feel that the punishment more just and proper, in the facts of the case, would
be imprisonment for life with life given its normal meaning and as defined in
section 45 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court may be of the view that the
punishment of death awarded by the trial court and confirmed by the High Court
needs to be substituted by life imprisonment, literally for life or in any case
for a period far in excess of fourteen years. The Court in its judgment may
make its intent explicit and state clearly that the sentence handed over to
the convict is imprisonment till his last breath or, life permitting, imprisonment
for a term not less than twenty, twenty five or even thirty years. But once the
judgment is signed and pronounced, the execution of the sentence passes into the
hands of the executive and is governed by different provisions of law. What is
the surety that the sentence awarded to the convict after painstaking and anxious
deliberation would be carried out in actuality? The sentence of imprisonment for life, literally, shall not by
application of different kinds of remission, turn out to be the ordinary run of
the mill life term that works out to no more than fourteen years. How can the
sentence of imprisonment for life (till its full natural span) given to a
convict as a substitute for the death sentence be viewed differently and
segregated from the ordinary life imprisonment given as the sentence of first
choice? These are the questions that arise for consideration in this case.

2\. The conviction of the appellant, Swamy
Shardanannda @ Murali Manohar Mishra under Sections 302 and 201 of
the Indian Penal Code has attained finality and is no longer open to
scrutiny.

Against the High Court judgment the appellant has
come to this Court in this appeal. The Appeal was earlier heard by a bench of
two judges. Both the honourable judges unanimously upheld the appellant’s
conviction for the two offences but they were unable to agree to the punishment
meted out to the appellant. S. B. Sinha J. felt that in the facts and
circumstances of the case the punishment of life imprisonment, rather than
death would serve the ends of justice. He, however, made it clear that the
appellant would not be released from prison till the end of his life. M. Katju
J., on the other hand, took the view that the appellant deserved nothing but
death. It is thus on the limited, though very important and intractable
question of sentence that this appeal has come before us.

“In Maru Ram vs. Union of India, (1981) 1
SCC 107, a Constitution Bench of this Court reiterated the aforesaid position
and observed that the inevitable conclusion is that since in Section 433A we
deal only with life sentences, remissions lead nowhere and cannot entitle a
prisoner to release. Further, in Laxman Naskar (Life Convict) vs.
State of W\.B. & Anr., (2000) 7 SCC 626, after referring to the decision of
the case of Gopal Vinayak Godse vs. State of Maharashtra, (1961) 3
SCR 440, the court reiterated that sentence for “imprisonment for
life” ordinarily means imprisonment for the whole of the remaining period of
the convicted person’s natural life; that a convict undergoing such sentence
may earn remissions of his part of sentence under the Prison Rules but such
remissions in the absence of an order of an appropriate Government remitting the
entire balance of his sentence under this section does not entitled the
convict to be released automatically before the full life term if served. It
was observed that though under the relevant Rules a sentence for imprisonment for
life is equated with the definite period of 20 years, there is no
indefeasible right of such prisoner to be unconditionally released on the
expiry of such particular term, including remissions and that is only for the
purpose of working out the remissions that the said sentence is equated with
definite period and not for any other purpose.”

The legal position as enunciated in Pandit Kishori
Lal, Gopal Vinayak Godse, Mau Ram, Ratan Singh and Shri Bhagwan and the unsound
way in which remission is actually allowed in cases of life imprisonment make
out a very strong case to make a special category for the very few cases where
the death penalty might be substituted by the punishment of imprisonment for
life or imprisonment for a term in excess of fourteen years and to put that
category beyond the application of remission.

66\. The matter may be looked at from a slightly
different angle. The issue of sentencing has two aspects. A sentence may be
excessive and unduly harsh or it may be highly disproportionately inadequate.
When an appellant comes to this court carrying a death sentence awarded by the
trial court and confirmed by the High Court, this Court may find, as
in the present appeal, that the case just falls short of the rarest of the
rare category and may feel somewhat reluctant in endorsing the death sentence.
But at the same time, having regard to the nature of the crime, the Court may
strongly feel that a sentence of life imprisonment that subject to remission
normally works out to a term of 14 years would be grossly disproportionate and
inadequate. What then the Court should do? If the Court’s option is limited
only to two punishments, one a sentence of imprisonment, for all intents and
purposes, of not more than 14 years and the other death, the court may feel
tempted and find itself nudged into endorsing the death penalty. Such a course
would indeed be disastrous. A far more just, reasonable and proper course would
be to expand the options and to take over what, as a matter of fact, lawfully
belongs to the court, i.e., the vast hiatus between 14 years’ imprisonment and
death. It needs to be emphasized that the Court would take recourse to the
expanded option primarily because in the facts of the case, the sentence of 14
years imprisonment would amount to no punishment at all.

67\. Further, the formalisation of a special category
of sentence, though for an extremely few number of cases, shall have the great
advantage of having the death penalty on the statute book but to actually use
it as little as possible, really in the rarest of the rare cases. This would
only be a reassertion of the Constitution Bench decision in Bachan
Singh (supra) besides being in accord with the modern trends in penology.

68\. In light of the discussions made above we are
clearly of the view that there is a good and strong basis for the Court to
substitute a death sentence by life imprisonment or by a term in excess of
fourteen years and further to direct that the convict must not be released from
the prison for the rest of his life or for the actual term as specified in the
order, as the case may be.

69\. In conclusion we agree with
the view taken by Sinha J. We accordingly substitute the death sentence given to
the appellant by the trial court and confirmed by the High court by imprisonment
for life and direct that he shall not be released from prison till the rest of
his life.

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