Life in jail sans remission for gangrape of minor valid? SC to examine law | India News

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought views of attorney general KK Venugopal on a petition challenging validity of Section 376-DB of IPC providing for mandatory minimum punishment of imprisonment for entire life without remission for convicts in rape/gangrape of a under-12 girl.
Appearing for two persons so sentenced under Section 376DB, advocate Gaurav Agrawal attempted to project an anomaly in the sentencing system drafted through the criminal amendments carried out in August 2018.

He said while Section 376-AB provided for a minimum sentence of 20 years for a person convicted of raping a under-12 girl, Section 376-DB provides for mandatory minimum punishment of life imprisonment for each of the persons involved in gangrape of an under-12 girl. Both sections provided death penalty as maximum punishment. “This life sentence without remission could mean 60-70 years of jail for a person who is in his twenties,” Agrawal said, adding it stripped the convict of any chance for reformation.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna said this question required consideration as the SC has already quashed the provision imposing mandatory death sentence as unconstitutional. It asked additional solicitor general KM Nataraj as well as advocate Agrawal to submit written submissions and propositions on the issue after it was informed that AG would also address the court on this.
The SC in ‘Mithu Vs Punjab‘ in 1983, had ruled that Section 303 of IPC was unconstitutional to the extent it provided for mandatory death penalty to a person who committed a murder while serving life sentence in another case. Section 303 had mandated that courts would impose no other punishment but death penalty in such cases.