The Supreme Court has awarded a 30-year sentence to a driver who raped and murdered a techie who had boarded his cab in Bangalore, saying “showing undue leniency in such a brutal case will adversely affect the public confidence in the efficacy of the legal system”.

A bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Rajesh Bindal imposed the 30-year sentence on Shiva Kumar while modifying the judgment of a sessions court that held that the convict must remain in imprisonment for the rest of his life, a view upheld by Karnataka High Court.

The top court relied on the judgment of a five-judge constitution bench in the V. Sriharan alias Murugan Vs Union of India case in 2016 that said only the apex court and the high courts had the power to hand jail sentences over 14 years as an alternative to the death sentence.

Under IPC Section 302, a person convicted of murder has to be sentenced to a minimum of life imprisonment or must be sentenced to death.

However, in terms of IPC Section 53 and CrPC Section 433A, the “appropriate government” has the power to grant remission to a life convict after he/she had spent a minimum of 14 years in jail.

Shiva Kumar had challenged the sessions court order on the ground that it did not have the power to keep him in jail for the rest of his life. The convict also took the plea that he had no criminal antecedents and had a wife, a child and aged parents to look after, hence he should be treated leniently.

Rejecting the plea, Justice Oka, who authored the judgment, said: “The life of the victim was cut short in this brutal manner at the age of 28 years.... The issue is of safety and security of women working with such companies.”