The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition filed by serial killer Chandrakant Jha, upholding his sentence of life imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life without remission.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih ruled that the sentence was legally valid and reaffirmed the Delhi High Court’s 2016 decision, which had commuted Jha’s death penalty while ensuring he would never be released prematurely. The court said the constitutional powers of pardon and clemency vested in the President and Governors remain unaffected.
Jha, a native of Bihar’s Madhepura district, became one of Delhi’s most notorious serial killers after murdering Anil Mandal, Upender, and Dilip between 2006 and 2007. He decapitated and mutilated the victims’ bodies before dumping them outside Tihar Jail, reportedly taunting police through letters and phone calls to catch him.
A trial court had originally sentenced Jha to death in two cases and life imprisonment in the third. However, the Delhi High Court commuted the death sentences in 2016, citing the absence of eyewitnesses, while maintaining his conviction and directing that he remain in prison for the rest of his life without remission. The Supreme Court had earlier declined to interfere with that verdict in 2019.
In its latest ruling, the apex court relied on the 2016 Constitution Bench judgment in Union of India vs. V. Sriharan, which upheld the power of constitutional courts to impose special-category life sentences without statutory remission in exceptional cases where the death penalty is considered excessive.
The court also dismissed similar petitions filed by other convicts serving life terms without remission, reiterating that life imprisonment ordinarily means imprisonment for the convict’s entire natural life unless lawfully remitted.
