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If the honorable court permits the counsel would like to state the issue in
the present case.
ISSUE:
Whether section 303 of indian penal code,1860 Infringes contained in
Article 21 of Indian Constitution ?
If the honorable court permits the counsel would like to state the
arguments regarding the present issue.
Arguments :
Your honour
1) Whether Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code infringes the
guarantee contained in Article 21 of the Constitution which Provides
that "No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty
except according to procedure established by law."
2) Section 300 of the Penal Code defines 'Murder', while Section 302
reads thus :
“Punishment for murder-whoever commits murder shall be
punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be
liable to fine”.
6) In the IPC offences are classified according their subject matter and
defined them with the context of those times and considered as the
appropriate punishment for the offences.
But one problem they were facing that what should be the
punishment for the offence of murder committed by a person who
is under a sentence of life imprisonment. They solved that problem
by enacting Section 303 , which reads thus :
7) There can be one reason for making the death sentence u/s 303 and
taking away the discretion of the court to impose lesser sentence is
that even the sentence was not sufficient to act as deterrent and
convict was hardened enough to commit while serving the death
sentence, the only punishment which he deserves is death
sentence. In 1860 when the act was enacted at that time deterrent
and retributive theories of punishment used to hold the sway over
the judgement. The reformative theory of punishment attracted the
attention of criminologists later in the day. If we look at the earlier
history of the CrPC before amendment of 1955 unlike as at present,
if a person undergoing the sentence of transportation for life was
sentenced
to transportation for another offence, the latter sentence was to
commence at the expiration of the sentence of transportation to which
he was previously sentenced, unless the court directed that the
subsequent sentence of transportation was to run concurrently with
the previous sentence of transportation. It was in 1955 that Section 397
of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898 was replaced by a new Section
397 by Amendment Act 26 of 1955. Under the new Subsection (2) of
Section 397 which came into force on January 1, 1956, if a person
already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life was sentenced
on a subsequent conviction to imprisonment for life, the subsequent
sentence had to run concurrently with the previous sentence. Section
427(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973 is to the same effect.
It is to be taken into consideration that legislature didn’t
considered the successive sentences of transportation of life were an
adequate punishment for offences of murder committed by a person
who was under the sentence of life imprisonment.