New Delhi: The Supreme Court, during a recent hearing, said that, if an accused is convicted of the offence of murder under section 302 of the IPC. So he cannot be punished with less than life imprisonment. A bench of Justice Krishna Murari and Justice MR Shah said that if a convict is punished under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, he will be punished with death or life imprisonment. The punishment for this heinous crime should be at least life imprisonment.

Actually, the Supreme Court gave this decision on a petition challenging the decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court by the state government. The MP High Court had ordered to reduce the sentence of life imprisonment of the accused in a case. The accused had committed offences under sections 147, 148, 323 and 302/34 of the IPC, but the MP High Court, while pronouncing the verdict, reduced the sentence of the offender to equal to the time spent by the convict in jail. Which is seven years and 10 months. After which the state government challenged this decision by filing a petition in the Supreme Court.

During the judgment, the bench of Justice Krishna Murari and Justice MR Shah said, "After hearing the arguments of the counsel appearing for the state and taking cognizance of the reduction of sentence, said that the High Court in its judgment has convicted the accused under section 302 of IPC. But his sentence has been reduced to 7 years and 10 months for the duration of his stay in jail during the trial. which is unacceptable."

The bench, while hearing the matter, restored the life sentence awarded by the court and gave the accused 8 weeks to surrender before the concerned court or jail authority. During the hearing, Deputy Advocate General Ankita Chaudhary, appearing for the State Government of Madhya Pradesh, argued that once an accused is convicted of an offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC, the minimum punishment for him shall be life imprisonment. Any punishment less than this shall be contrary to section 302.

He told the bench during the hearing that the commuted accused was found guilty under section 302, but till the High Court's decision, his sentence was only seven years, 10 months. At the same time, the Supreme Court said that in the case of Section 302 the commutation of the sentence of the accused is not acceptable.

Talking about Section 302, Advocate Sunil Chauhan says that you must have always heard that under Section 302 of IPC, the convict was sentenced to life imprisonment. But what is section 302 and how much punishment is there in it? Many people are not aware of this.

Let us know what is Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code:-

The Indian Penal Code gives the definition of some offences committed by the citizens of our country. Along with this, it has also been told inside the IPC for which crime, and how much punishment will be given. The IPC does not apply to India's military (navy, water, land). Earlier IPC was not applicable in Jammu and Kashmir also. But after the removal of Article 370, IPC came into force there too.

IPC came into force in 1860:-

The Indian Penal Code came into force in the year 1860 during the British period. After this, amendments were made to it from time to time (especially after the independence of India). Pakistan and Bangladesh also implemented the Indian Penal Code.

You must have heard that in many cases a person sentenced to life imprisonment is released from jail after serving a sentence of 14 years or 20 years. The reason behind this is that in many cases the state governments have the right to reduce the punishment of the guilty. Sections 55 and 57 of the Indian Penal Code empower the governments to commute the punishment.

Section 55- The State Government shall, in every case in which a sentence of imprisonment for life is passed, without the consent of the offender, the appropriate Government shall, for a term not exceeding fourteen years, with imprisonment of either description for a term can change into.

Section 57- According to section 57 of the IPC, 'In computing the fractions of punishments, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years. Section 57 of the IPC, which deals with the time of sentence of imprisonment for life. Section 57 provides that when the punishments are calculated, for counting the years of imprisonment for life, it shall be counted as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years. But this does not mean that life imprisonment is 20 years. This time has been created so that if to be reckoned, life imprisonment is treated as equivalent to 20 years. Counting is required when a person has been sentenced to a double sentence or is imprisoned for a longer period of time in default of payment of a fine.

Meaning of double life sentence:-

In October 2021, the Kollam Sessions Court in Kerala sentenced a convict to double life imprisonment for killing him by being bitten by a snake, after which the question of life imprisonment began to arise in the minds of many whether life imprisonment is 14 years or 20 years. When any criminal is sentenced to life imprisonment, it means that the accused will serve the sentence within the boundary wall of the jail till his last breath.

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