JUDGMENT

KULDIP SINGH, J.:—Sat Pal alias Sadhu, the petitioner, has challenged his continued detention in jail and is seeking an order in the nature of habeas corpus claiming that he has served more than the maximum sentence of imprisonment prescribed under law and should, therefore, be released.

2. The petitioner was arrested on March 27, 1978 in a case registered under Section 302 Indian Penal Code. He was convicted on August 16, 1978 and was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. According to the petitioner he has undergone about 13 years and six months actual imprisonment and total period of imprisonment including remissions comes to more than 17 years. Admittedly his sentence has not been remitted fully nor commuted for imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years either under Section 55, Indian Penal Code or under Section 433B, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 by the appropriate government. However, the petitioners case is that he has undergone more than 14 years sentence including remissions and since the said sentence was got executed in jail custody in the form of rigorous imprisonment, the government must be deemed to have commuted his sentence to 14 years either under Section 55, Indian Penal Code or Section 433(B), Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 notwithstanding that no formal order in that behalf was made by the State Government and as such his continued detention in jail is illegal and he is entitled to be released forthwith. The argument has been advanced by Mr. Balwant Singh Malik, the learned counsel for the petitioner on the following grounds:

(I) "Imprisonment for life" as one of the punishments was substituted for "transportation for life" in Section 53 of the Indian Penal Code by Amending Act 26 of 1955. No corresponding amendment has been made in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and there is no provision under the Code for the execution of the sentence of "imprisonment for life". In the absence of any provision for executing the sentence of "imprisonment for life" in the Code of Criminal Procedure the detention of life convicts in prison is unlawful and illegal and as such the government, in order to legalise detention, has necessarily to commute life sentence under Section 55, Indian Penal Code or Section 433(B), Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to one of the rigorous imprisonment, which under the said provisions cannot legally exceed a term of 14 years The petitioner having completed 14 years, he is entitled to be released.

(II) The sentence of "life imprisonment" has not been defined either under the Indian Penal Code or under any other law. It is no where provided that a life convict has to undergo rigorous imprisonment. The Government by causing the life convicts to be dealt with as a prisoner sentenced to rigorous imprisonment must be deemed to have commuted sentence of imprisonment for life to a sentence of rigorous imprisonment under Section 55, Indian Penal Code or Section 433(B) Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for a term not exceeding 14 years.

3. The arguments advanced by the learned counsel stand concluded against him by the judgment of this Court in Naib Singh v. State of Punjab, (1983) 2 SCC 45. In the said case Naib Singh challenged his continued detention in jail on the following grounds:-

"In regard to the sentence of life imprisonment the place where it has to be executed or carried out has to be appointed under Section 32 of the Prisoners Act, 1900, and since the sentence of imprisonment for life, like the sentence of transportation of life, could be executed only by way of banishment or exile by the convict being removed to the place or places required to be appointed by the State Government under Section 32 of the Prisoners Act, the executing authorities were obliged to execute or carry out the said sentence in jail indirectly by way of commuting it for imprisonment of either description for a term not exceeding 14 years under Section 55, IPC or Section 433(b), Cr.P.C., 1973.