General Provisions
The appropriate Government may, without the offender's consent, commute (reduce/convert) any punishment to a lesser one, per the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023's procedure - the Central Government decides for death sentences or Union-subject offences; the relevant State Government decides for other offences.
This gives the government the power to reduce a convicted person's sentence to something less severe (for example, commuting a death sentence to life imprisonment) without needing the prisoner's own agreement, following the procedure set out in the BNSS (the BNS's companion criminal procedure code).
This is the legal basis by which a state or central government can commute a death sentence to life imprisonment as an act of clemency or policy, without requiring the condemned person's consent to the change.