Section 6

Life imprisonment, by its nature, has no fixed number of years — it can mean imprisonment until natural death. But many other laws (about remission, parole eligibility, suspension of sentence, or combining sentences) require calculating a 'fraction' of the total sentence, which is impossible without a fixed number. This provision, inherited from Section 57 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, creates a legal fiction — solely for the purpose of such arithmetic — treating life imprisonment as equivalent to 20 years. It does not shorten an actual life sentence.

The Supreme Court, notably in Gopal Vinayak Godse v. State of Maharashtra (1961), held that this rule is only a calculating device for specific statutory fractions and does not mean that a life convict automatically gets released after 20 years. Later cases such as Maru Ram v. Union of India (1980) and Swamy Shraddananda v. State of Karnataka (2008) reaffirmed that 'imprisonment for life' ordinarily means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict's natural life, and release before that requires a valid remission or commutation order by the appropriate government, not this arithmetic fiction.

• Myth: A life sentence in India means exactly 20 years in prison.
  Fact: Courts have clarified that 'imprisonment for life' ordinarily means imprisonment for the rest of the convict's natural life. The '20 years' figure is only a fictional number used for calculating fractions under other rules, not an actual release date.
• Myth: After 20 years, a life convict is automatically released.
  Fact: Release before the end of a life sentence requires a formal remission or commutation order by the appropriate government, following due legal procedure — it does not happen automatically because of this section.