One life, one life sentence: Supreme Court sets aside consecutive life terms in Thane rape and murder case

Justice K. V. Viswanathan and Justice Arun Palli apply the Constitution Bench ruling in Muthuramalingam: two life sentences from a single trial are superimposed on each other, never served one after the other.

A Thane trial court sentenced Raju Shantaram Koli to imprisonment for life twice in September 2013, once for the murder of a 12-year-old child and once for her rape, and directed that the two terms run one after the other. The Bombay High Court confirmed that direction in 2016. On 27 October 2026 the Supreme Court set it aside. A bench of Justice K. V. Viswanathan and Justice Arun Palli held that the Constitution Bench in Muthuramalingam v. State had already settled the point: life sentences awarded for multiple offences in a single trial cannot be directed to run consecutively, because a prisoner has only one life to serve them in. Both life sentences stand, but they are now superimposed, so that remission or commutation of one does not automatically release Koli from the other. He has been in custody since 30 April 2010.

Justice Viswanathan wrote the judgment. The bench condoned the delay in approaching it, recording the nature of the matter and the fact that Koli had been in jail throughout, and granted leave in both petitions before it.

A writ petition the High Court could not entertain

Koli reached the Supreme Court by two routes. The first was Criminal Writ Petition No. 842 of 2024, in which he asked the Bombay High Court to direct that the life sentences awarded in Sessions Trial No. 282 of 2010 run concurrently. On 13 January 2025 a Division Bench disposed of that petition, holding that a writ court cannot review the judgment of a coordinate bench of the same court, meaning the 10 June 2016 judgment that had confirmed his conviction and sentence. The High Court left it open to him to challenge the sentence before whichever court the law allowed. That order became Criminal Appeal No. 5072 of 2026, arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 8535 of 2025.

The second route was the direct one. Through Diary No. 49371 of 2026, which became SLP (Crl.) No. 20839 of 2026 and then Criminal Appeal No. 5073 of 2026, Koli challenged the 2016 High Court judgment itself, on the single question whether the two life sentences could be made to run consecutively. Once the Supreme Court condoned the delay and admitted that petition, it said it no longer needed to decide whether a writ court could have ordered concurrent sentences. The first appeal was disposed of as infructuous.

M.Y. Deshmukh appeared for Koli and Bharat Bagla for the State of Maharashtra.

The 2013 sentence and the direction that went with it

The facts were undisputed. Koli was arrested on 30 April 2010 on the allegation that he had raped and murdered a 12-year-old victim the previous day. He was tried in Sessions Case No. 282 of 2010 before the Additional Sessions Judge, Thane. By a judgment of 27 September 2013 the trial court convicted him under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to imprisonment for life with a fine of Rs 5,000, in default five months of simple imprisonment. It also convicted him under Section 376 read with Section 342 IPC and sentenced him to imprisonment for life with a fine of Rs 5,000, in default five months of simple imprisonment, on both counts. The operative order then directed that the substantive sentences “shall run consecutively, one after other, and not concurrently”.

Koli appealed as Criminal Appeal No. 975 of 2014. On 10 June 2016 the Bombay High Court confirmed the conviction and the sentence, including the consecutive direction. Its operative portion expressly noticed that the trial court had imposed consecutive sentences and said the High Court would not like to interfere with that.

What the Constitution Bench decided in Muthuramalingam

The question, as the bench framed it, was whether the trial court and the High Court were justified in imposing consecutive life sentences in a single trial for offences under Section 302 and Section 376 read with Section 342. The answer lay in Muthuramalingam and Others v. State represented by Inspector of Police, (2016) 8 SCC 313, where a Constitution Bench had considered whether consecutive life sentences can be awarded to a convict found guilty of a series of offences tried together.

The Supreme Court quoted the Constitution Bench at length. Its reasoning began from a proposition it found settled by a long line of decisions: imprisonment for life means imprisonment for the remainder of the offender’s life unless the sentence is commuted or remitted by the competent authority. Section 31 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which governs sentences for several offences at one trial, had to be read consistently with that. Any direction requiring an offender to undergo life imprisonment twice over would be anomalous and irrational, the Constitution Bench had said, because “humans like all other living beings have but one life to live”. So read, Section 31(1) permits consecutive running of sentences only where they are not life sentences.

The Constitution Bench had also drawn on Section 427(2) of the Code. Parliament, it reasoned, was fully aware of the anomaly of a prisoner serving life twice over and had carved out an exception to the general rule for life sentences imposed for two distinct offences separately tried, which cannot be directed to run consecutively. Ranjit Singh had in terms held that consecutive life sentences cannot be awarded because humans have only one life. That logic had to extend to Section 31 even though Section 31 contains no provision analogous to Section 427(2). It dealt with Kamalanantha, which had allowed a court to award suitable punishment, including multiple life sentences, for each of several offences punishable with death. There was no quarrel with that, the Constitution Bench had said; a court can and should award each sentence the law sanctions. But if Kamalanantha meant that life sentences could also be directed to run consecutively, it was not sound. Awarding multiple life sentences so that they are superimposed on one another is entirely different from directing them to run consecutively.

The Constitution Bench’s answer to the reference was therefore in the negative. Multiple life sentences can be awarded for multiple murders or other offences punishable with life, but they cannot be directed to run consecutively. They are superimposed on each other, so that remission or commutation granted by the competent authority in one does not by itself result in remission of the sentence for the other.

Applying the rule to Koli

That, the bench held, is the correct legal position. Life sentences awarded for multiple offences in a single trial cannot be directed to run consecutively; they are superimposed, so that remission or commutation of one does not automatically extend to the other. The trial court’s direction and the High Court’s confirmation of it could not stand against a Constitution Bench ruling to the contrary.

The bench disturbed nothing else. The two convictions and the two life sentences remain, as do the fines of Rs 5,000 on each count with five months of simple imprisonment in default, the set-off under Section 428 of the Code for the detention undergone since 30 April 2010, and the directions on the muddemal property and a free copy of the judgment for the accused, all as paragraph 86 of the trial court’s judgment framed them.

Order

Criminal Appeal No. 5073 of 2026, arising out of Diary No. 49371 of 2026, is partly allowed. The High Court judgment of 10 June 2016 in Criminal Appeal No. 975 of 2014 is set aside to the extent it upheld the consecutive running of the life sentence under Section 302 and the life sentence under Section 376 read with Section 342, and the corresponding direction in the trial court judgment of 27 September 2013 in Sessions Trial No. 282 of 2010 also stands set aside. The remaining part of the operative order in paragraph 86 of the trial court judgment, as affirmed by the High Court, is maintained, and the Supreme Court re-stated the operative order of conviction and sentence in full. In accordance with Muthuramalingam, the two life sentences are superimposed over each other so that any remission or commutation granted by the competent authority in one does not ipso facto result in remission of the other. Criminal Appeal No. 5072 of 2026, arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 8535 of 2025, is disposed of as infructuous.