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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