The State of Goa has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court's sentence of ten years' rigorous imprisonment awarded to journalist Tarun Tejpal for rape. Goa seeks enhancement to life imprisonment. Tejpal was convicted under Section 376 IPC for sexually assaulting a junior colleague inside a hotel elevator in Goa in 2013. The trial court had acquitted him, but the Bombay High Court reversed that acquittal and imposed a ten-year sentence, which the state now contests as inadequate.

This case sits at the intersection of several criminal law principles that CLAT PG tests heavily: appellate enhancement of sentence, the scope of Section 376 IPC (now Section 64 BNS), and the State's right to appeal against inadequate sentences.

Under Section 377 CrPC (Section 419 BNSS), the State government may appeal to the High Court against an acquittal or against a sentence on the ground that it is inadequate. The State may further appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 379 CrPC (Section 421 BNSS) if the High Court has, on appeal, reversed an acquittal and imposed a sentence. This is precisely the procedural posture here: the trial court acquitted Tejpal; the High Court reversed and convicted; now the State challenges the quantum of the High Court's sentence before the Supreme Court.

The substantive law angle: Section 376 IPC prescribes a minimum of seven years' rigorous imprisonment, extendable to life or ten years under the base provision, and life imprisonment in aggravated forms under Section 376(2). The examiner will test whether an appellate court can enhance a sentence beyond what a lower appellate court imposed, and under what conditions life imprisonment becomes the appropriate sentence versus the default ten-year term. The distinction between Section 376(1) and 376(2) IPC — and the role of aggravating circumstances — is precisely the kind of 'identify statutory scope' question the CLAT PG examiner has used repeatedly.