New Delhi, May 5: The notion that life imprisonment implies imprisonment for 20 or 14 years is wrong. Life imprisonment means “imprisonment for the entire life of the prisoner” unless the Government chooses to remit the same earlier, the Supreme Court to-day ruled.

A sentence of life imprisonment did not automatically come to an end after 20 years. After serving a jail term of 20 years, including remissions, a life convict could not ask to be released as a matter of right, the Court held.