An accused who challenges his conviction before a higher court ordinarily does so with the expectation that the conviction may be reversed, the sentence reduced, or at the very least, the judgment reconsidered on its merits. But can that very appeal become the occasion for imposing a harsher sentence when neither the State, the victim nor the complainant has sought enhancement?
The Supreme Court has answered this question in Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna v. State, Rep. by the Inspector of Police, 2026 INSC 880, holding that a High Court cannot use its appellate or suo motu revisional jurisdiction to enhance the sentence of a convict in such circumstances. The Court emphasised that an accused should not be placed in a worse position merely because he exercised his valuable right of appeal.
The judgment also addresses another significant sentencing principle: where life imprisonment is imposed along with other life or fixed-term sentences arising from the same trial, those sentences cannot be directed to run consecutively.
The Question Goes Beyond the Gravity of the Crime
The case arose from an exceptionally grave set of offences involving three murders, robbery and abduction. Yet, the Supreme Court’s decision was not concerned with diluting the seriousness of those crimes. The central issue was institutional: what can a High Court legally do when only the convict has approached it?
This distinction is important. Sentencing is not governed only by the seriousness of the offence. A court’s power to alter a sentence must also be exercised within the boundaries of criminal procedure. Even where a court considers the sentence inadequate, the route through which enhancement is sought matters.
The Supreme Court was therefore required to decide two questions: whether the High Court was justified in enhancing the appellant’s sentence, and whether the direction requiring his various sentences to run consecutively was legally sustainable.
How the Sentencing Dispute Reached the Supreme Court
The appellant, Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna, and another accused, Ambarasu, were prosecuted in connection with the deaths of Dr. A. Malik Mohammed, his wife Katheeja Bibi and their watchman Gnanaprakasam.
According to the prosecution, on 8 November 2007, the accused entered Dr. Mohammed’s residence. Gnanaprakasam and Dr. Mohammed were killed. Katheeja Bibi was robbed of valuables, abducted in the family’s car and later taken to Ongoor village, where she was burnt alive after petrol and diesel were poured over her.
The Trial Court convicted Gopi of several offences, including offences under Sections 449, 302, 392, 364 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (Sections 332, 103, 309, 140, 238 of BNS). Multiple sentences of life imprisonment and fixed-term imprisonment were imposed. Significantly, the Trial Court directed the sentences to run consecutively.
That procedural development ultimately became crucial.
The High Court Made the Sentence More Severe
While deciding the matters together, the High Court acquitted Gopi of the charge under Section 120-B IPC (Section 61 BNS) but maintained his convictions for the remaining offences.
However, it went further. The High Court enhanced Gopi’s sentence from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life. It also affirmed the Trial Court’s direction that the sentences would run consecutively.
This happened despite the absence of an appeal seeking enhancement of Gopi’s sentence by the State, victim or complainant. Gopi consequently approached the Supreme Court, which issued notice limited to the question of sentence.
The resulting controversy presented a fundamental procedural question: can a court transform an accused’s own challenge to his conviction into an occasion for increasing his punishment?
An Accused’s Appeal Cannot Ordinarily Leave Him Worse Off
The Supreme Court treated the law on the issue as settled. The Court relied substantially upon Nagarajan v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 INSC 802, which in turn followed Sachin v. State of Maharashtra.
The reasoning proceeds from the structure of Section 386(b) CrPC [Section 427(b) BNSS]. In an appeal from conviction, an appellate court has considerable authority to interfere with findings and sentences. But the power to alter the nature or extent of the sentence in an accused’s appeal does not authorise the appellate court to enhance it.
That limitation has an important practical foundation. A convict approaches the appellate court seeking relief. He may challenge his conviction entirely or accept the conviction while seeking reduction of sentence. If the appellate court could, without any appeal for enhancement from the opposing side, make his sentence more severe, the exercise of the right of appeal itself could become hazardous.
The Supreme Court observed in the precedent reproduced in the judgment that an accused appealing against conviction could otherwise find himself better off by withdrawing the appeal or never filing one. The Court regarded such a result as incompatible with the importance of appellate review in criminal proceedings.
The Right of Appeal Has a Constitutional Dimension
One of the more significant aspects of the judgment is its treatment of the accused’s right to appeal. The Court reiterated that the right of an accused to appeal is not merely an ordinary procedural facility. An appeal permits scrutiny not only of the ultimate finding of guilt and the sentence imposed but also of procedural flaws, improprieties and lapses committed during trial.
An appellate court may therefore acquit the accused, order retrial where legally warranted, reduce the sentence while maintaining the conviction, or dismiss the appeal.
What it cannot do in an appeal filed by the accused is maintain the conviction and simultaneously increase the sentence when no competent party has invoked proceedings seeking enhancement.
The Supreme Court specifically reiterated that the High Court, while exercising appellate jurisdiction, cannot effectively convert itself into a revisional court when neither the State, victim nor complainant has sought enhancement.
This prevents the right of appeal from carrying an unintended punitive consequence.
Could Suo Motu Revisional Powers Provide a Way Around This Rule?
This was the particularly interesting feature of Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna. The High Court had not merely decided Gopi’s criminal appeal. Because proceedings concerning the co-accused were also before it, the High Court exercised suo motu revisional jurisdiction and evaluated the trial proceedings more broadly.
Could this revisional power independently support enhancement? The Supreme Court held that such an exercise was impermissible in the present case.
It noted that there was no appeal for enhancement by the State or complainant. Nevertheless, after clubbing the proceedings and exercising suo motu revision, the High Court increased Gopi’s punishment from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.
Applying Nagarajan, the Supreme Court characterised this exercise as impermissible and illegal and set aside the enhancement.
This is an important part of the ruling because it prevents the procedural restriction applicable to an accused’s appeal from being circumvented simply by invoking suo motu revisional powers in the same proceedings.
Why “Life Imprisonment” and “Remainder of Natural Life” Matter
At first glance, life imprisonment and imprisonment for the remainder of natural life may appear similar. Legally, however, the High Court’s modification was treated as an enhancement.
A sentence of life imprisonment ordinarily means imprisonment for the convict’s natural life, but it operates within the statutory framework governing remission and commutation. A judicial direction that the convict must remain imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life can significantly restrict the practical possibility of release.
Thus, replacing ordinary life imprisonment with imprisonment for the remainder of natural life was not merely a change in terminology. It made the sentencing order more onerous.
The Supreme Court therefore treated the change as a substantive enhancement of punishment, which could not be imposed in the absence of an appeal seeking enhancement by the State, victim or complainant.
Who Must Seek Enhancement of Sentence?
The judgment repeatedly identifies the absence of an enhancement proceeding by the State, victim or complainant as decisive.
This reflects the adversarial structure of criminal appellate proceedings. Where the sentence imposed by the Trial Court is considered inadequate, the law provides mechanisms through which an appropriate challenge may be brought before the superior court.
The important point is that enhancement must arise through a legally sustainable procedural route. The accused’s own appeal cannot ordinarily be appropriated for that purpose.
As the Supreme Court put the principle, in the absence of an appeal by the State, victim or complainant seeking enhancement, the appellate court cannot enhance the sentence on its own and thereby place the convict in a worse position than before he filed the appeal.
The Second Error: Consecutive Life Sentences
The Supreme Court then turned to a separate but equally significant problem. The Trial Court had ordered the sentences imposed upon Gopi to run consecutively, and the High Court had affirmed that direction.
The Supreme Court relied upon the Constitution Bench decision in Muthuramalingam & Ors. v. State, Represented by Inspector of Police, (2016) 8 SCC 313.
The underlying logic is straightforward. A life sentence means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s normal life, subject to the operation of applicable remission or commutation law. If one life sentence were required to begin only after another life sentence had ended, the second sentence could never meaningfully commence during the convict’s lifetime.
The same difficulty arises where a fixed-term sentence is ordered to begin after completion of life imprisonment. The judgment, referring to earlier precedent, explains that where imprisonment for life and a fixed-term sentence are imposed, the fixed-term sentence must necessarily run concurrently with the life sentence. Similarly, where two life sentences are imposed, they must run concurrently.
Five Life Sentences Could Not Be Stacked One After Another
Gopi had been sentenced to life imprisonment under five counts: one under Section 449 IPC (Section 332 BNS), three under Section 302 IPC (Section 103 BNS) for the three murders, and another under Section 364 IPC (Section 140 BNS). He was also given fixed-term imprisonment for other offences.
Both courts below had directed the punishments to run consecutively. The Supreme Court held that this was contrary to the settled interpretation of Section 31 CrPC (Section 25 BNSS). A sentence of life imprisonment cannot be made to run consecutively either with another life sentence or with a fixed-term sentence.
Accordingly, the Court modified the direction and ordered all the appellant’s sentences to run concurrently.
The Larger Principle: An Appeal Should Not Become a Sentencing Trap
The importance of the ruling extends beyond the particular offences involved. Suppose an accused receives ten years’ imprisonment and appeals against his conviction. If the State has accepted the sentence and no victim or complainant has sought enhancement, permitting the appellate court to increase the sentence to fifteen years merely while deciding the accused’s appeal would create a powerful deterrent against appellate review.
Every convict would have to calculate whether challenging a potentially erroneous conviction might expose him to an even harsher punishment. That is inconsistent with the function of appellate criminal justice. The rule recognised by the Supreme Court therefore provides procedural security: an accused can invoke appellate jurisdiction without his own appeal, by itself, becoming the vehicle for aggravating his punishment.
This does not mean that an inadequate sentence can never be enhanced. Rather, enhancement must be sought through the procedure recognised by law and not generated against the accused merely because he exercised his right to appeal.
Suo Motu Powers Are Not Unrestricted Powers
The judgment also contains an important lesson about revisional jurisdiction. The expression “suo motu” does not mean that a High Court is free from the procedural structure governing criminal proceedings. Revisional powers exist to correct jurisdictional errors, illegality and material irregularity, but their exercise remains controlled by the Code and judicial precedent.
In Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna, the High Court’s decision to register a suo motu revision did not authorise it to achieve a sentencing result that the Supreme Court regarded as impermissible in the absence of an enhancement challenge.
This reinforces a broader proposition of criminal procedure: the existence of judicial power and the permissible manner of exercising that power are separate questions.
A court may possess wide supervisory or revisional jurisdiction, yet the exercise of that jurisdiction must remain consistent with procedural safeguards protecting the accused.
What Exactly Did the Supreme Court Ultimately Decide?
The Supreme Court did not interfere with Gopi’s convictions that had been maintained by the High Court. Its intervention was confined to sentencing.
Two corrections were made.
- The High Court’s enhancement of the appellant’s sentence from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life was set aside because no appeal seeking enhancement had been filed by the State, victim or complainant.
- The direction that the multiple sentences should run consecutively was modified. The Supreme Court directed that they would instead run concurrently.
The Court expressly concluded that the High Court had wrongly exercised its suo motu revisional jurisdiction in enhancing the appellant’s sentence and had also erred in directing consecutive sentences.
Significance of Supreme Court’s Ruling
Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna v. State is significant because it draws a clear boundary around the powers of an appellate court when the proceeding before it has been initiated by the convict.
The decision protects three interconnected principles: the meaningful exercise of the right of appeal, procedural fairness in enhancement of punishment, and consistency in the execution of multiple sentences involving life imprisonment.
More importantly, the judgment makes clear that procedural safeguards are not dependent upon the nature of the allegation. The underlying crimes in this case were extremely serious, but the gravity of the offence could not enlarge the High Court’s jurisdiction beyond what criminal procedure permitted.
That distinction is central to the rule of law. The seriousness of a crime influences the punishment that may lawfully be imposed; it does not dispense with the procedure through which that punishment must be imposed.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court’s ruling makes the position clear: a convict’s own appeal cannot ordinarily become the basis for increasing the punishment imposed upon him when no enhancement has been sought by the State, victim or complainant. Permitting such enhancement would risk placing an accused in a worse position merely for exercising the right to challenge his conviction.
In Gopi @ Sahaya Puruna v. State, Rep. by the Inspector of Police, 2026 INSC 880, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s enhancement from life imprisonment to imprisonment for the remainder of natural life. It further corrected the order requiring multiple life and fixed-term sentences to run consecutively and directed that they run concurrently.
The judgment ultimately rests on a simple but important principle: a convict’s exercise of the right to challenge his conviction should not, by itself, become the reason for imposing a punishment more severe than the one he came to challenge.