Supreme Court to decide if lifer can be subjected to rigorous tasks

Senior counsel Pandit Parmanand Katara appearing for Panchal argued that instead of imposing a “rigorous imprisonment”,those sentenced to life should be subjected only to “simple imprisonment”.

The main thrust of Panchal’s argument through his counsel was that since a life convict is already doomed to remain in jail either for throughout his life or at least 14 years,subjecting him/her to rigorous work would only amount to putting him/her to further torture.

The distinction lies in the fact that under rigorous imprisonment,a convict has to do hard work like digging earth,ploughing or cooking food for 500 co-prisoners. Whereas,under “simple imprisonment”,tasks like sewing,gardening or serving refreshments to co-prisoners are prescribed.

According to the Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code,“Whoever commits murder shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.”

The convict has cited IPC Sections 194 (giving false evidence to secure capital punishment for a person),195 (giving false evidence to procure punishment of another person in offence for which the minimum imprisonment is seven years),where it is clearly defined that there shall be “rigorous” imprisonment.

However,under Section 302,Panchal claims,the statute nowhere defines the punishment to be “rigorous”. Hence he submitted that even courts cannot sentence a person to rigorous imprisonment unless the statute expressly provides for such a punishment.

Panchal was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering one Indrasinh on August 16,1999 in Kutch district.