PUDR welcomes the revision in the definition of ‘Life Imprisonment’ in Clause 4 (b) in Chapter II (“Of Punishments”) in the revised draft of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS II). Contrary to the earlier draft (BNS I) in which “Imprisonment for life” in Chapter II was defined as “imprisonment for remainder of a person’s natural life”, the revised section (4(b) of BNS II omits this clause and merely reads: “Imprisonment for life”. This is a welcome step as it revokes the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs’ statement that held that under the BNS, life term was to be interpreted as end of natural life.
Notwithstanding this welcome revision in the generalized definition, what is of concern is the retention of the clause “end of natural life” in specific punishments. Like in the IPC (Indian Penal Code), which had first introduced the ‘end of natural life’ clause in 2013 for specific sexual offences and trafficking, the BNS (I and II) retain this end clause for these same offences. More worryingly, the number of offences for which the punishment for life imprisonment till the end of natural life can be given, has increased in the BNS and now includes offences such as punishment of murder by life convict, attempt to murder, voluntary causing grievous hurt, kidnapping or maiming a child for begging.
What then is the value of the revision of life imprisonment under the generalized chapter on Punishments when life imprisonment until death has been retained for specific offences in BNS (II)? For one, the punishment regime under the BNS is a harsher one as it includes a longer list of offences, as compared to the IPC, for which imprisonment for life till the end of natural life can be awarded. Second, the BNS reflects the tendency of the higher judiciary, which has, of late, interpreted life term as the end of a convict’s natural life without remission as an alternative to the death penalty (Union of India v. V Sriharan @Murugun). However, unlike the Courts which have favoured imprisonment till end of natural life as a replacement for Death Penalty, the BNS has reproduced and enhanced both categories of non-reformative punishments- death penalty and life term till the end of natural life.
PUDR has maintained that life imprisonment till the end of natural life, like death penalty, is detrimental to a reformative criminal justice system. Like death penalty, it refuses the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation of the accused and is no less retributive. Given the state of overcrowded prisons in India stripped of the basic human conditions, the punishment for life till death amounts to cruelty, as it compels the prisoner to undergo the punishment of waiting for death under inhuman and intolerable conditions.
We demand that the punishment of Life Term in the BNS be amended to remove the concluding clause of ‘the remainder of a person’s natural life’ from the specific offences.
Joseph Mathai
Paramjeet Singh
Secretaries, PUDR
pudr@pudr.org
