Mithu Case and Mandatory Sentencing

Mandatory sentencing requires a court to impose a predetermined punishment once specified conditions are proved, leaving little or no sentencing discretion. In Mithu v. State of Punjab, the Supreme Court held that death cannot constitutionally be made automatic without considering the offence and the offender.

Provision challenged and holding

Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code prescribed compulsory death for murder committed by a person undergoing life imprisonment. In 1983, the Supreme Court struck it down as violating Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

Constitutional reasoning

• The provision created an arbitrary distinction between murders committed by life convicts and other murders, although cases within both groups could differ greatly in culpability and circumstances. It therefore offended Article 14.
• A procedure depriving a person of life must be just, fair and reasonable under Article 21. Automatic death excluded meaningful consideration of mitigating circumstances.
• The law removed the judicial choice between life imprisonment and death that underlay Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, where death was retained only as an exceptional punishment.

Rule and its scope

The constitutional rule is that a legislature cannot compel a mandatory death sentence while denying the court a real opportunity to individualise punishment. Mithu does not establish that every mandatory minimum sentence is unconstitutional; its decisive rule concerns automatic capital punishment and the absence of judicial discretion in matters of life and death.