Citation: Naval Kishore & Anr. v. State of Punjab, Criminal 2026 INSC 1048.
While trial courts have the legal authority to hand down life imprisonment for murder, they do not have the power to order that a convict remain in prison for the rest of their natural life without statutory remission, because that special sentencing power is reserved exclusively for Constitutional Courts (the High Courts and the Supreme Court); consequently, the Supreme Court upheld the appellants’ murder conviction but modified their sentence from imprisonment for natural life down to a fixed term of 25 years of rigorous imprisonment without the benefit of remission.
To put it simply, this is about who has the power to take away a prisoner’s chance at early release (remission).
Here is what it means:
- The trial court originally sentenced the accused to life in prison and added a special order that they must stay in jail for the rest of their natural life without any possibility of early release.
- The Supreme Court clarified that lower courts (Trial Courts) only have the power to give standard life imprisonment. They do not have the legal authority to block a prisoner’s right to seek remissions (early release based on good behavior) for the rest of their life.
- Only higher courts—specifically the Supreme Court or High Courts (called Constitutional Courts)—are allowed to create a special sentence where a convict must stay in prison for a fixed long term or life without remission.
- Because the trial court overstepped its powers by ordering natural life imprisonment, the Supreme Court fixed the mistake. They kept the murder conviction in place, but changed the sentence to a fixed term of 25 years of rigorous imprisonment without remission.
In December 2009, a woman named Pinki and her two young daughters were brutally murdered near railway tracks in Ludhiana, Punjab, after which the victim’s husband (Ashok Kumar), his brother (Jyoti Kumar), and his friend (Naval Kishore) were arrested and eventually convicted of murder by the trial court, which sentenced them to life imprisonment with a special direction to stay in prison for the rest of their natural life. While the High Court dismissed their appeal and upheld the conviction, the Supreme Court later heard the matter specifically regarding the legality of that harsh sentence, ultimately ruling that trial courts cannot block statutory remissions, and reduced the appellants’ punishment to a fixed term of 25 years in prison without remission.
