The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved judgment in a plea filed challenging the sentence imposed by the trial court in a murder case, particularly the direction requiring the convict to undergo 35 years of actual imprisonment before remission could be considered. The matter was heard by Justice Naveen Chawla and Justice Arun Bhardwaj.

The petitioner contended that the trial court could not have directed 35 years of actual imprisonment without remission, arguing that such a power vests only with constitutional courts in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent Constitution Bench judgment in Union of India v. V. Sriharan, (2016) 7 SCC 1.

Both the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court had dismissed the appeal challenging the trial court order. The present proceedings therefore focus specifically on the legal validity of the 35-year actual imprisonment/no-remission direction in light of the subsequent Constitution Bench ruling in Sriharan.

The case arose from an acid attack on the petitioner’s wife at Shakurpur bus stand on February 29, 2008, which took her life. The prosecution alleged that the petitioner had called his wife to the bus stand in connection with their divorce proceedings and subsequently threw acid on her. Her mother testified that the deceased later told her at the hospital that the petitioner had attacked her. The trial court, while relying on the dying declaration and testimony of the mother of the deceased, convicted the appellant under Section 302 IPC on May 12, 2011.

It sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for life, along with a fine of ₹10,000, with one year’s simple imprisonment in default of payment of the fine. He had to serve 35 years of actual imprisonment, and remission would not be considered until completion of those 35 years. While sentencing, the trial court held that the case did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category, and therefore did not warrant the death penalty, but described the acid attack as “brutal and gruesome.”