Supreme Court strikes down suo motu sentence enhancement and consecutive life terms
A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi held a High Court cannot enhance a convict’s sentence in his own appeal or run life terms consecutively.
The Supreme Court has set aside a Madras High Court order that enhanced a murder convict’s sentence from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life, holding the enhancement was made without any appeal for enhancement by the State, the victim or the complainant. In Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna v. The State (2026 INSC 880), decided on 18 August 2026, a bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi found the High Court wrongly used suo motu revisional jurisdiction to worsen the convict’s position in his own appeal. The Court also held that multiple life sentences and a fixed-term sentence cannot run consecutively, and directed all of the appellant’s sentences to run concurrently. Notice had been issued limited to the question of sentence.
How the dispute reached the Court
The prosecution case arose from an incident on 8 November 2007 in Kanyakumari District, in which two accused, Ambarasu and the appellant Gopi, killed a watchman, Gnanaprakasam, and Dr. A. Malik Mohammed, then abducted Dr. Mohammed’s wife, Katheeja Bibi, pledged her jewellery, and burnt her alive at Ongoor village in Villupuram District.
An FIR was registered as Crime No. 784 of 2007 under Section 302 IPC after the bodies were discovered on 12 November 2007. Both accused were arrested on 19 November 2007. The Sessions Judge, Kanyakumari Division at Nagercoil, framed twelve charges and jointly tried both accused.
After the accused were questioned under Section 313 CrPC, Ambarasu absconded. The Trial Court split his case as Sessions Case No. 94/2009 and continued the trial against Gopi alone in S.C. No. 97/2008.
Conviction and enhancement below
By judgment dated 1 October 2009, the Trial Court acquitted Gopi under Sections 379, 472, 201 and 392 IPC, but convicted him under Sections 120-B, 449, 302 (three counts), 392, 201 and 364 IPC. He received life imprisonment on several charges and a fixed-term sentence, with fines totalling Rs. 63,000. The Trial Court directed the sentences to run consecutively.
Gopi appealed to the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in Criminal Appeal (MD) No. 411/2009. Ambarasu, later secured and tried in S.C. No. 94/2009, was convicted and awarded the death sentence, with a reference under Section 366 CrPC placed before the High Court.
The High Court clubbed the appeal with Ambarasu’s reference and registered suo motu revision under Sections 397 and 401 CrPC. By its judgment dated 20 December 2011, it acquitted Gopi under Section 120-B IPC, affirmed the remaining convictions, and enhanced his sentence from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of his life with a fine of Rs. 15,000, while confirming consecutive running. It reduced Ambarasu’s death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.
Enhancement without an enhancement appeal is impermissible
The appellant argued that a High Court cannot enhance a convict’s sentence through revisional jurisdiction absent an appeal for enhancement by the State, the victim or the complainant. The State contended the High Court’s decision followed settled law.
The Court framed two questions: whether the enhancement was justified, and whether consecutive running should have been affirmed. On the first, it relied on Nagarajan v. State of Tamil Nadu (2025 INSC 802), which followed Sachin v. State of Maharashtra. Under Section 386(b) CrPC, an appellate court in an appeal filed by the accused may alter the nature or extent of the sentence “but not so as to enhance the same.”
The Court noted that a right of appeal is both a statutory and a constitutional right, and an accused should not be left worse off for exercising it. It held that while exercising appellate jurisdiction, the High Court cannot act as a revisional court when no party has sought enhancement.
Applying this, the bench found the High Court clubbed the appeal with Ambarasu’s reference and used suo motu revisional jurisdiction to enhance Gopi’s sentence though no enhancement appeal had been preferred. This, the Court held, was “impermissible and therefore, illegal,” and set aside the enhancement.
Life sentences cannot run consecutively
On the second question, the Court relied on the Constitution Bench decision in Muthuramalingam v. State (2016) 8 SCC 313, which examined Section 31(1) CrPC. Since imprisonment for life means imprisonment till the end of the convict’s normal life, a life sentence cannot run consecutively with another life sentence or with a fixed-term sentence.
The Trial Court had awarded life imprisonment on five counts — once under Section 449 IPC, thrice under Section 302 IPC for the three murders, and once under Section 364 IPC — along with a fixed term of seven years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 IPC, all directed to run consecutively. The Court held this went against the settled position, and modified the direction so that the sentences run concurrently.
Order
The Court held the High Court wrongly exercised suo motu revisional jurisdiction in enhancing the sentence absent any enhancement appeal, and erred in directing consecutive running. It set aside the enhancement, directed that the sentences run concurrently, and disposed of the appeals in those terms.