Appellate court cannot enhance convict’s sentence in absence of appeal on its own: SC

The Supreme Court has said an appellate court cannot enhance the sentence of a convict on its own, in the absence of an appeal preferred by the State or the victim or the complainant.

The significant observation was made by the apex court in a sensational triple-murder case, in which a former vice-chancellor of the Calicut University, his wife and their security guard were killed.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi set aside a Madras High Court order that had enhanced the sentence of co-convict Gopi in the case from life imprisonment to a life term for the remainder of his life.

Life term refers to a sentence for the rest of a convict’s natural life, but the duration can be reduced through remissions, whereas imprisonment for the “remainder of life” explicitly bars any early release or reduction of sentence. In the case of a life-term convict, remission can only be granted after a period of 14 years in jail, according to Section 433A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)

The prosecution’s case was that one Ambarasu, who was working as a driver for former vice-chancellor Malik Mohammed, was dismissed from service after he was caught in a fraudulent activity.

With a view to taking revenge, Ambarasu and his associate, Gopi, broke into Mohammed’s house after killing his watchman, Gnanaprakasam.

They killed Mohammed and escaped in his car with his wife, Katheeja Bibi.

The duo took Bibi to Ongoor village in Tamil Nadu’s Viluppuram district and burnt her alive by pouring a mixture of petrol and diesel on her and setting her on fire. Police found her partially burnt body on November 14, 2007.

The trial court had granted the death penalty to Ambarasu and a life sentence to Gopi.

The high court, however, enhanced Gopi’s sentence from imprisonment for life to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.

The top court, in its judgment, said the high court had wrongly exercised its suo motu (on its own) revisional jurisdiction in enhancing Gopi’s sentence when there was no appeal filed either by the State or the victim or the complainant for enhancement of sentence.

“It is settled that in the absence of an appeal preferred by the State or the victim or the complainant seeking enhancement of the sentence, the appellate court cannot enhance the sentence of the convict on its own to leave the convict in a position worse off than he was before the filing of the appeal,” the bench said.

The apex court also said the high court had erred in directing sentences to run consecutively.

“We, therefore, direct that the sentences would run concurrently,” the bench said.