Judgment NAGENDRA RAI and N.K.SINHA JJ. 1. The present petition, in form of Public Interest Litigation has been filed by the petitioner for quashing a part of Government decision, dated 8-8-1989, as contained in Annexure-2, by which the Government has granted remissions in sentence to the convicts in exercise of power under Section 432 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure on the occasion of the birth centenary of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and on the completion of forty years of Independence. By the said order, the Government has granted remissions to the convicts and has classified them in different categories. 2. The petitioner is aggrieved by Clause 2 (ii) which provides that in case of convicts who have been sentenced to life imprisonment for offences for which death penalty is one of the punishments or where a capital punishment has been commuted into life imprisonment, remission of six months would be granted to only such convicts who have served at least substantive imprisonment for 14 years. With regard to other categories of convicts, remissions have been granted without putting any such condition. 3. It is submitted on behalf of the petitioner that the action of the Government in putting the aforesaid conditions on the "lifers" punished for capital offences is arbitrary and is not permissible in law. 4. Section 432 (1) Cr. P. C. confers power on the appropriate Government to suspend the execution of the sentence to remit the whole or any part of the punishment to which the convicts have been sentenced with or without condition. Section 433, Cr. P. C. confers power of commutation of sentence on the appropriate Government as mentioned in the said section. Section 433-A provides that where a sentence of imprisonment for life is imposed on conviction of a person for an offence for which death is one of the punishments provided by law, or where the sentence of death imposed on a person has been computed under Section 433 into one of imprisonment for life, such person shall not be released from prison unless he had served at least fourteen years of imprisonment. The scope of the aforesaid section was considered by the Supreme Court in the case of Maru Ram and another v. Union of India and another, AIR 1990 SC 2147 , and it was held that the provisions of Section 433-A are valid. The scope of the aforesaid section was considered by the Supreme Court in the case of Maru Ram and another v. Union of India and another, AIR 1990 SC 2147 , and it was held that the provisions of Section 433-A are valid. It was further held that the remission rules and like provisions stand excluded so far as lifers punished for capital offences are concerned. Remissions by way of reward or otherwise cannot cut down the sentence as such and cannot grant final exit passport for the prisoner except by Government action under Section 432 (1) of the Code or in exercise of the Constitutional power under Article 72 or 161 of the Constitution. The power under Articles 72 and 151 of the Constitution is absolute and cannot be fettered by the provision of Sections 432, 433 and 433-A of the Code. 5. In the present case the impugned decision has been taken by the State Government in exercise of power under Section 432, Cr. P. C. and it has made distinction between the lifers who have been convicted for capital offences and others who have been convicted for other offences and the same cannot be said to be unreasonable or arbitrary and on the other hand, the same is consistent with the provision of Section 433-A of the Code. The case of lifers convicted for capital offences is distinguishable from other convicts and as such there was a reasonable basis for classifying them in a separate category. 6. Accordingly, we do not find any merit in this application and the same is dismissed.