The Supreme Court said there is no strict rule about serving a specified minimum sentence before a convict’s application can be put forth before court to hear his appeal for the suspension of the jail sentence.
A bench comprising of Justice Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal made the observation on November 3 while considering a challenge to a Gujarat High Court order.
The High Court had counted only the post-conviction jail time of two convicts as the period of sentence undergone by them while considering their plea to suspend their imprisonment sentence.
The Court did not include their pre-conviction incarceration in consideration while deciding on the matter.
The Supreme Court termed the High Court’s approach incorrect stating that it has only considered post conviction.
The Apex Court said that it should be noted that may noted that there is no hard and fast rule which requires an accused to undergo sentence for a particular period before his prayer for suspension of sentence is considered.
The top court was hearing pleas by two men convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Their pleas to suspend their sentence pending disposal of the criminal appeal were rejected by the Gujarat High Court in June, leading them to approach the Supreme Court for relief.
Earlier, the High Court had accepted the State’s contention that the period of actual sentence undergone by the convicts was not over four years but only five months, which was the jail term underdone by them after conviction.
The Supreme Court opined that the High Court ought to have favorably considered the convicts’ application, since they had no antecedents and had undergone incarceration of more than 40 percent of the maximum sentence for their offence.
The appeal was, thus, allowed. The accused were directed to be produced before the trial court within a week to be enlarged on bail.
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