In Brief
Jitendra was convicted of two murders committed in Delhi in 1999 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a 30-year non-remission cap for the first and concurrent life sentence for the second. The High Court modified the sentences to 'time already undergone' (16 years 10 months), calling the release order a 'typographical error' when correcting it. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction and the trial court's original sentences. It held that the High Court erred in modifying sentences below the mandatory life term for murder and lacked jurisdiction to 'correct' its substantive judgment post-delivery. In cases of multiple murders tried together, sentences must run concurrently, not consecutively. The 30-year non-remission cap is a valid special sentencing category in heinous cases under Constitution Bench precedent. The appellant's appeals were dismissed; those of the victims' families and State were partly allowed by restoring concurrent life sentences with the 30-year cap.
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