Sentence of life imprisonment means rigorous imprisonment: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday reiterated that sentence of life imprisonment means rigorous imprisonment and not simple imprisonment (Md Alfaz Ali vs State of Assam)..A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai reaffirmed a 1983 judgment of the top court in this regard and held that there is no need to reexamine the settled position of law."In view of the authoritative pronouncements of this Court on the issues that arise for consideration in these SLPs, there is no need to re-examine the limited point for which notice was issued," the judgment said..The Court was hearing two appeals one from a judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court and another from Gauhati High Court.The Court had in July 2018 issued notice restricted to the question of propriety of specifying rigorous imprisonment while imposing the life sentence.In the 1983 judgment in Naib Singh vs State of Punjab, the top court had held that “there is no dearth of judicial precedents where, in the matter of nature of punishment, imprisonment for life has been regarded as equivalent to rigorous imprisonment for life...it will have to be held that the position in law as regards the nature of punishment involved in a sentence if imprisonment for life is well settled and the sentence of imprisonment for life has to be equated to rigorous imprisonment for life."In 1992, the Supreme Court in Sat Pat Alisa Sadhu vs State of Haryana had accepted the Naib Singh judgment and refused to refer the issue to a larger Bench.In view of the above, the Court said that the issue does not need reconsideration and dismissed the present pleas..Senior Advocate A Sirajudeen and advocate Ajay Marwah appeared for the petitioner.Advocates Akshay Amritanshu, Kartikey Singh and Ankit Kumar Lal represented State of Himachal Pradesh while advocate Debojit Borkakati appeared for State of Assam..[Read Judgment]