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Synopsis

A Single Judge Bench of Justice Sarang V. Kotwal of the Bombay High Court has held that life imprisonment in POCSO cases would have the same meaning as life imprisonment under IPC i.e. 20 years. Therefore, half of the life imprisonment would mean 10 years.

The case pertained to the punishment awarded to a convict who was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one-half of the imprisonment for the life and was also liable to pay a fine of Rs.5,000 for the offense punishable under Section 18 read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act.

The Registry of the Court had received a letter from the Superintendent, Kolhapur Central Prison because he could not understand exactly how much sentence the convict had to undergo. The Superintendent approached the Sessions Court of Sangli, however, the additional judge asked the Superintendent to approach the High Court since the order was passed by the High Court.

The court had appointed Shri Drupad Patil as an amicus curiae who submitted before the court that Section 2(2) of the POCSO Act and Section 57 of IPC cover the issue completely and that the single judge bench of the High Court had clarified the issue in case of Chandrakant Vithal Pawar Vs. State of Maharashtra 2011 SCC OnLine Bom 1731. He submitted before the court that the Superintendent should have approached the e Law & Judiciary Department and the Home Department for seeking guidance instead of approaching the High Court since there was no ambiguity or confusion in the operative part of the judgment.

The court noted that

“The wording ‘life imprisonment is not defined under POCSO Act. However, those words are used under IPC and, therefore, reference will have to be made to IPC provisions and they will have to be relied on”

The court while calculating the number of years in case of life imprisonment referred to Section 57 of the IPC which states that :

“Section 57. Fractions of terms of Punishment.-- In calculating fractions of terms of punishment, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years.”

Therefore, the court concluded that when the fractions of imprisonment for life are to be calculated then life imprisonment should be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years. Thus, half of life imprisonment in such cases would mean imprisonment for ten years.

Case title: Suresh @ Pintya Kashinath Kamble  vBos State of Maharashtra