Later Law Reducing Punishment Can Benefit Accused Awaiting Sentence: Supreme Court Commutes TADA Death Sentence

Sant Longowal was shot dead at a meeting at Sherpur Gurudwara on 20.8.1985 (paras 1, 11, 13). The appellant and six others were tried before a Designated Court under TADA 1985; the others were acquitted, while the appellant, overpowered at the spot with a firearm, was convicted of several offences including Section 3(2)(i) of TADA 1985 and Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC (paras 1, 12, 14). Since no alternative sentence was prescribed, he was sentenced to death (para 1). He appealed as of right under Section 16, his counsel pressing only for a reduction of the sentence to life imprisonment (paras 1, 2).

The Court accepted the eyewitness evidence that the appellant was one of the assailants (para 18). Applying the test of intent from State v. Nalini, it found the shooting meant to strike terror in the people at large, and so a terrorist act under Section 3(1) (paras 23, 24); the murder conviction was also upheld (para 25). On sentence, TADA 1985 expired on 22.5.1987, and "Normally the proceedings terminate ipso facto with the expiry of the statute" (para 26), but its saving clause in Section 1(3) kept penalties alive as though the Act were in force (paras 29, 30). TADA 1987 covered the same offence but added an alternative sentence (para 31). Article 20(1) bars only heavier retrospective penalties; where later law softens the sentence, "it would be a salutary principle for administration of criminal justice to suggest that the said legislative benevolence can be extended to the accused who awaits judicial verdict regarding sentence" (para 33). Section 25 of TADA 1987 overrides inconsistent enactments, including an expired Act kept alive by a saving clause (paras 34, 35).