KSLU Solved Question Papers
Criminal Law I
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 4
2025 Jun (100 marks) Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 4 Criminal Law I 2025 Jun (100 marks) Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2025 Jun (100 marks) examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025 Jun (100 marks) examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 13 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1Explain the various types of punishments under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.[16]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the aims a punishment serves; the closed list in section 4 and how it differs from section 53 of the Code; each kind in turn: death (where the Sanhita uses it, the procedure, Bachan Singh and Mukesh), imprisonment for life (meaning, commutation, the fourteen-year rule), rigorous and simple imprisonment, solitary confinement (Sunil Batra), forfeiture, fine (default and recovery), and community service (Mohammad Giasuddin); the rules that shape a sentence (sections 9, 10 and 13); a table of what changed; a conclusion.
What a punishment is for
A punishment is the harm the State lawfully imposes on a person found guilty of an offence. It serves several aims at once.
- Deterrence. It warns the offender and others not to offend.
- Prevention. It keeps a dangerous person away from society for a time.
- Retribution. It expresses society's condemnation of the crime.
- Reformation. It tries to turn the offender back into a law-abiding citizen.
Each kind of punishment in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 leans towards one or more of these aims.
The closed list: section 4
Section 4 says that offenders are liable to six punishments.
- Death.
- Imprisonment for life.
- Imprisonment, of two descriptions, rigorous (with hard labour) and simple.
- Forfeiture of property.
- Fine.
- Community service.
Section 53 of the Indian Penal Code listed the first five. "Imprisonment for life" had replaced "transportation for life" there with effect from 1 January 1956. Community service is the Sanhita's addition. The list is closed. A court cannot invent a punishment, such as public shaming, because section 1(3) makes a person liable "under this Sanhita and not otherwise".
1. Death
Where it is used. Death is never the only punishment the Sanhita allows. It is always offered beside life imprisonment. It is provided, among others, for:
- murder (section 103(1)), and murder by a group of five or more on grounds such as caste or religion (section 103(2), new);
- murder by a person already serving a life sentence (section 104);
- rape causing death or a vegetative state (section 66), and rape of a girl under twelve (section 65(2));
- gang rape of a girl under eighteen (section 70(2)), and repeat rape offenders (section 71);
- waging war against the Government of India (section 147), and organised crime or a terrorist act causing death (sections 111 and 113);
- kidnapping for ransom (section 140(2)), and dacoity with murder (section 310(3));
- false evidence on which an innocent person is executed (section 230(2)).
Procedure. The trial judge must record "special reasons" for a death sentence (section 393(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023). The sentence cannot be carried out until the High Court confirms it (section 407). The sentence directs that the convict "be hanged by the neck till he is dead" (section 393(5)). The President and the Governor may still pardon or commute under Articles 72 and 161.
Facts. In Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1980 SC 898, decided on 9 May 1980, a man convicted of three murders challenged the death penalty itself.
Held. A Constitution Bench upheld it. But life imprisonment is the rule, and death may be given only in the "rarest of rare cases" when the alternative is "unquestionably foreclosed".
Facts. In Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2017) 6 SCC 1, decided on 5 May 2017, the accused had gang raped a young woman in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. She died of her injuries.
Held. The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences. Weighing aggravating against mitigating circumstances, it found the aggravating ones outweighed them.
Why it bears. Together the two cases show how death works today. It is lawful, but it needs a careful weighing in each case and stays exceptional.
2. Imprisonment for life
Imprisonment for life means imprisonment for the rest of the convict's natural life. Many new sections say so in plain words, such as sections 70, 71 and 104. Section 6 counts life as twenty years only when a court must work out a fraction of a term, for example for an attempt.
The Government may reduce it. Section 5 of the Sanhita applies section 474 of the Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Under it, life imprisonment may be commuted to a term of not less than seven years. But section 475 sets a floor for the gravest cases. One is where life was imposed for an offence that also carries death. The other is where a death sentence was commuted to life. The convict must then serve at least fourteen years.
3. Imprisonment: rigorous and simple
Rigorous imprisonment includes hard labour, and simple imprisonment does not. The section creating the offence says which kind applies.
- Only rigorous, for grave offences such as robbery (section 309(4)) and the first three forms of sexual harassment (section 75(2)).
- Only simple, for milder ones such as defamation (section 356(2)) and insulting a woman's modesty (section 79).
- Either description, for most offences. Under section 7 the court may then make the term wholly rigorous, wholly simple, or partly each.
4. Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is not on the list in section 4. Yet Sunil Batra calls it a substantive punishment that only a court can impose, as part of rigorous imprisonment. Section 11 allows a court to order it for up to one month where the term is six months or less. The limit is two months where the term is up to a year, and three months where it is longer. Section 12 adds that it may never exceed fourteen days at a time, with equal gaps between periods.
Facts. In Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration, AIR 1978 SC 1675, decided on 30 August 1978, a prisoner under sentence of death was kept in solitary confinement by the prison authority. He challenged it under Articles 14, 19 and 21.
Held. The Prisons Act did not allow the authority to keep him in solitary confinement. A convict does not lose his fundamental rights because he is convicted.
Why it bears. Solitary confinement is lawful only when a court orders it within sections 11 and 12, never as a matter of prison routine.
5. Forfeiture of property
Forfeiture means the State takes the offender's property. The Sanhita keeps it only in a few places. One is depredation on the territory of a foreign State at peace with India (section 154). Another is receiving property taken by such depredation or by waging war (section 155). In both, property used in or gained by the offence is forfeited.
6. Fine
Fine is the commonest punishment. Section 8 governs it.
- Where no limit is stated, the amount is unlimited but must not be excessive.
- The court may order imprisonment in default of payment, in addition to any other term.
- For an offence punishable with imprisonment and fine, the default term cannot exceed one fourth of the maximum term.
- For an offence punishable only with fine or community service, the default term is simple. It is up to two months for a fine up to five thousand rupees, four months up to ten thousand, and one year beyond that.
- Default imprisonment ends when the fine is paid, in proportion to what is paid.
- An unpaid fine may be recovered within six years, and the offender's death does not free his estate from it.
7. Community service
The Explanation to section 23 of the Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita defines community service. It is work that a court orders a convict to do as punishment, and that benefits the community. He is paid nothing for it. The Sanhita offers it for six petty offences.
- A public servant unlawfully engaging in trade (section 202).
- Not appearing in answer to a proclamation (section 209).
- Attempting suicide to compel or restrain a public servant (section 226).
- A first theft of property worth less than five thousand rupees, where the property is returned (proviso to section 303(2)).
- Misconduct in public by a drunken person (section 355).
- Defamation (section 356(2)).
Facts. In Mohammad Giasuddin v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1977 SC 1926, decided on 6 May 1977, a government clerk had taken money from unemployed young men by promising them jobs. He was sentenced to three years for cheating.
Held. The Supreme Court reduced the sentence. It said crime is a curable deviance, and the State should rehabilitate rather than take revenge.
Why it bears. Community service puts that reformative idea into the statute. A petty first offender repairs his wrong in public instead of learning crime in prison.
Rules that shape the sentence
- One punishment for one act (section 9). Where an offence is made up of parts that are themselves offences, the offender is punished only once. Fifty blows in one beating are one hurt, not fifty.
- Doubt between offences (section 10). Where the court finds a person guilty of one of several offences but cannot say which, the lowest punishment applies.
- Repeat offenders (section 13). A person convicted again of a coin or property offence carrying three years or more may get up to life.
What the Sanhita changed
| Point | Indian Penal Code | Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita |
|---|---|---|
| Kinds of punishment | five (section 53) | six (section 4), community service added |
| Life imprisonment | not defined in the sections | many sections say "remainder of natural life" |
| Murder by a life convict | the section allowed death only (section 303) | death or life (section 104) |
| Point | Indian Penal Code | Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita |
|---|---|---|
| Group murder on grounds of identity | no separate provision | section 103(2), death or life |
| Fines | lower figures | raised in many sections |
Conclusion. The Sanhita allows six punishments under section 4: death, life imprisonment, rigorous or simple imprisonment, forfeiture, fine and community service. Death is kept for the gravest offences, always beside life imprisonment, and Bachan Singh and Mukesh confine it to the rarest of rare cases. Life imprisonment means natural life, subject to commutation and the fourteen-year floor. Solitary confinement is a court-ordered part of rigorous imprisonment, and Sunil Batra bars it as prison routine. Fine is governed by section 8. Community service, the one new punishment, carries the reformative idea of Mohammad Giasuddin into the law.
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