Question:medium

Under Section 57 of Indian Penal Code, in calculating fractions of terms of punishment, 'imprisonment for life' shall be reckoned as equivalent to imprisonment for:

Updated On: Jul 13, 2026
  • twenty years
  • twelve years
  • thirty years
  • imprisonment till death
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

A life sentence in India does not end after a fixed number of years; it normally continues for the rest of the convict's life unless the government grants remission. The twist in this question is that Section 57 IPC creates a special, narrow exception only for computing fractions of a sentence.

  1. Twenty years: This is the number Section 57 assigns. Whenever a law says a punishment shall not exceed, say, one-fourth of imprisonment for life, courts take one-fourth of twenty years, that is five years, rather than trying to divide an indefinite sentence.
  2. Twelve years: This figure has no basis in Section 57. It is not used anywhere in the IPC for this computation.
  3. Thirty years: Some remission guidelines and sentencing debates mention longer notional periods, but Section 57 itself sticks to twenty years, not thirty.
  4. Imprisonment till death: This describes what a life sentence actually means in practice, a term lasting until natural death, but it cannot be used as a number to divide into fractions, which is exactly why Section 57 substitutes a workable figure of twenty years instead.

The correct answer is twenty years, since that is the fixed equivalence Section 57 IPC lays down solely for calculating fractional terms of punishment.

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