Article 161: Power of Governor to grant pardons, etc., and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases

Leading cases

• Union of India v. V. Sriharan (2015)Life imprisonment means imprisonment for the rest of the convict's life; by majority, constitutional courts may substitute death with a term beyond 14 years or whole life without remission; Section 435(1) consultation means concurrence.
• Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India (2014)Undue, unexplained and inordinate executive delay in deciding mercy petitions, and insanity, are supervening circumstances on which death sentences may be commuted under Article 32, in all cases including TADA; fifteen death sentences were commuted and guidelines issued.

Questions on this article

8 questions in 13 of our papers cite Article 161. Try these from the free papers:

1. 1. In Parveen Kumar @ Parveen Chauhan v. State of Haryana (1 July 2026), the Supreme Court held that Haryana's 2002 policy on premature release of life convicts, framed under Article 161, was not displaced by the 2008 policy. It treated State of Haryana v. Raj Kumar (2021), which had called the 2002 policy statutory, as:

   A.doubtful, and referred the conflict to a Bench of three Judges for an authoritative answerB.per incuriam, being contrary to the three-Judge Bench decision in State of Haryana v. JagdishC.overruled, since one two-Judge Bench may overrule another on a constitutional questionD.binding but distinguishable, since Raj Kumar dealt with an entirely different class of convicts
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