Supreme Court Converts Life Sentence to 23 Years Already Served, Orders Immediate Release

A bench of Justices K. V. Viswanathan and Vijay Bishnoi upheld a murder conviction but modified the life sentence to the period already undergone, directing immediate release.

The Supreme Court on 26 May 2026 declined to disturb a concurrent conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 against a man found guilty of a 1998 stabbing death in Gujarat, but converted his sentence of life imprisonment to the period he had already served  23 years, 6 months and 3 days and directed his immediate release. The bench of Justice K. V. Viswanathan and Justice Vijay Bishnoi held that such a modification is permissible under the interpretation placed by the Constitution Bench in Union of India v. V. Sriharan and followed in Shiva Kumar alias Shiva alias Shivamurthy v. State of Karnataka, so long as the fixed term exceeds fourteen years. The appellant had been about 21 years of age at the time of the incident.

How the Case Reached the Supreme Court

The appellant, Munna Moyuddin Shaikh, was tried as Accused No. 2 in Sessions Case No. 33 of 1998 before the Additional Sessions Judge, Vadodara, Camp at Chhotaudepur, Gujarat. Four accused were originally set up for trial; the other three were acquitted. The Trial Court convicted the appellant under Section 302 IPC and Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act, sentencing him to imprisonment for life and imposing a fine of Rs. 25,000 with appropriate default sentences.

The High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad, by its judgment dated 18 March 2002 in Criminal Appeal No. 459 of 2001, confirmed both the conviction and the sentence. The present appeal before the Supreme Court arose out of Special Leave Petition (Criminal) Diary No. 35717 of 2025, which was registered as Criminal Appeal No. 2686 of 2026.

Prosecution Case and Concurrent Findings on Conviction

The prosecution's case rested on three eyewitnesses: PW-1 Arif Husain Inarbhai Mirza, PW-2 Ahmed Ali Mohammed Ali Shaikh, and PW-5 Rashid Ali Kadar Ali Makrani. Relying on their evidence, the Trial Court found that the appellant dealt knife blows to the torso and abdomen of the deceased, causing injuries that resulted in his death. Contradictions in the witnesses' statements were found to relate only to the other accused and not to the case against the appellant. The Trial Court also found corroboration in the medical evidence and in the discovery of the knife at the behest of the appellant.

The High Court confirmed these findings, holding that all the eyewitnesses were reliable and were corroborated by the knife discovery and the medical evidence. Before the Supreme Court, the bench said it had not been persuaded to disturb the concurrent findings on conviction. The conviction under Section 302 IPC and Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act was accordingly maintained.

The Sentence Question: Can Life Imprisonment Be Fixed at a Term Already Served?

Counsel for the appellant, Ms. Jaikriti S. Jadeja, submitted that the appellant had already undergone, without remission, approximately 23 years, 6 months and 3 days of imprisonment and that this was a fit case for converting the life sentence to the period already served.

The Court examined the Constitution Bench decision in Union of India v. V. Sriharan, (2016) 7 SCC 1. That bench had answered the question of whether imprisonment for life means imprisonment till the end of the convict's natural life by holding that life imprisonment under Section 53 read with Section 45 IPC means imprisonment for the rest of the prisoner's life, subject to the right to claim remission under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution and under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Critically, Sriharan also held that the power to impose a modified punishment providing for any specific term of incarceration or imprisonment till the end of the convict's life as an alternative to the death penalty can be exercised only by the High Court and, in the event of a further appeal, by the Supreme Court, and not by any inferior court.

The appellant's counsel relied on Shiva Kumar alias Shiva alias Shivamurthy v. State of Karnataka, (2023) 9 SCC 817, where the Court had read Sriharan broadly. That judgment held that even in cases where capital punishment is not imposed or proposed, constitutional courts can exercise the power of imposing a modified or fixed-term sentence by directing that a life sentence shall be of a fixed period of more than fourteen years for example, twenty or thirty years. The fixed punishment cannot be for a period less than fourteen years in view of Section 433-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

State's Concession and the Question of Enhancement

Counsel for the respondent-State, Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, brought to the Court's notice the judgment in Birbal Choudhary alias Mukhiya Jee v. State of Bihar, (2018) 12 SCC 440. In that case, the High Court had modified sentences of life imprisonment for certain convicts to twenty years' rigorous imprisonment. The Supreme Court had held in Birbal Choudhary that such a modification from life imprisonment to a fixed term of twenty years was in fact a reduction, not an enhancement, and therefore no notice under Section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was required.

The bench in the present case drew the same inference: modifying a sentence of life imprisonment to a fixed term is not an enhancement of sentence. The underlying ratio, as the Court put it, is that life imprisonment under Section 53 read with Section 45 IPC means imprisonment till natural life subject to the right to claim remission. Modifying it to a fixed term is permissible as long as the period imposed exceeds fourteen years.

Reasoning for Modification in This Case

The Court identified two reasons for adopting the course of modification. First, the legal framework established in Sriharan and Shiva Kumar permits constitutional courts to impose a fixed-term sentence in place of life imprisonment, provided the term exceeds fourteen years. The period already undergone over 23 years without remission plainly satisfies that threshold.

Second, the Court took note of the appellant's age at the time of the incident. The offence occurred in 1998 and the appellant was then about 21 years old.

The bench said it was not disturbing the conviction but found the sentence of life imprisonment ought to be modified to the period already served.

Order

The Supreme Court partly allowed Criminal Appeal No. 2686 of 2026. While maintaining the conviction under Section 302 IPC and Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act, the bench modified the sentence to the period already undergone, that is, 23 years, 6 months and 3 days. The Court directed that the appellant be set at liberty forthwith if not required in any other case. Pending applications, if any, were disposed of.