Supreme Court to decide if courts can add word ‘rigorous’ to life sentence

Supreme Court to decide if courts can add word ‘rigorous’ to life sentence The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the question whether courts are statutorily empowered to make life imprisonments tougher for the convicts by adding the word “rigorous” (harsh) to life sentence as the law does not provide for this. A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and R K Agrawal considered a

submission which said that neither the penal provision dealing with the offence of murder, nor the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) provide that the term “rigorous” can be added by courts while awarding life sentence to convicts.

The apex court issued notices to the parties in the case and tagged the matter with a similar issue being heard by a different bench.