Monday 6 February 2012

Sec. 27(3) of The Arms Act (1959)


Section 27 (3) of The Arms Act (1959) provides for mandatory death sentence to an accused charged with an offence under this provision.
Section 27(3) says: “Whoever uses any prohibited arms or prohibited ammunition or does any act in contravention of Section 7 and such use or act results in the death of any other person shall be punishable with death.”
The Supreme Court of India struck down Sec 27(3) as unconstitutional, because it imposes mandatory death penalty on the convicted person and runs contrary to the statutory safeguards that give the judiciary discretion in the matter of imposing death penalty. Thus it violates the principle of ‘judicial review’ (which is a ‘basic feature’ of the Constitution).

The SC also noted that the Arms Act is a post-constitutional law and thus has to obey Art. 13 of Constitution (which says that any law that takes away of abridges the rights given in this Part, i.e. Fundamental Rights, shall be void). The Sec 27 (3) is thus repugnant to Art. 14 and 21 of the Constitution and is therefore void.

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