[POCSO Act] Half of life imprisonment is 10 years: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court recently clarified that under Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, half of life imprisonment would mean imprisonment for 10 years [Suresh Kashinath Kamble vs The State of Maharashtra]..Justice Sarang V Kotwal held that since the term 'life imprisonment' is not defined under POCSO Act, it would have to be given meaning in consonance with its meaning in the Indian Penal Code (IPC)."The wording ‘life imprisonment’ is not defined under POCSO Act. However, those words are used under IPC and, therefore, reference will have to be made to IPC provisions and they will have to be relied on," he held.Since as per Section 57 of IPC, for calculating fractions of terms of punishment, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years, half of the same would amount to 10 years, the Court concluded. .The Court was dealing with an administrative order in a case in which it had imposed half of a life sentence on a POCSO convict. The superintendent of the concerned prison addressed a letter to the Court registry as he was unsure what half of life imprisonment would mean..Advocate Drupad Patil, amicus curiae, stated that Section 2(2) of POCSO Act and Section 57 of IPC cover the issue completely and that the court had clarified the issue in the case of Chandrakant Vithal Pawar Vs. State of Maharashtra. Section 2(2) of POCSO Act states that the words not defined under the Act shall be assigned meaning from their definitions under the IPC, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, and the Information Technology Act.Section 57 of IPC provides that for calculating fractions of terms of punishment, imprisonment for life shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years.According to Patil, these provisions and the judgment were clear and the superintendent had no reason to seek guidance from the Court in this regard. .The Court agreed and stated that Section 57 IPC leaves no doubt as to how sentence should be calculated when the accused is sentenced to suffer half of life imprisonment. "It provides that in such case when the fractions of imprisonment for life is to be calculated then life imprisonment should be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for twenty years," it said.Thus, the Court held that half of life imprisonment in the case would mean imprisonment for ten years..[Read Order]