In a recent case, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether a convict must serve a specified minimum sentence before applying to have their jail sentence suspended by a court. This clarification came in the case of “Vishnubhai Gangpatbhai Patel and anr. v. State of Gujarat.”
On November 3, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal made this important observation while reviewing a challenge to an order from the Gujarat High Court. The High Court, in question, had only considered the post-conviction jail time of two convicts as the period of sentence served when they applied to have their imprisonment sentence suspended.
In simpler terms, the High Court did not account for their pre-conviction incarceration, a stance that the Supreme Court deemed incorrect.
The Supreme Court stated, “Before the High Court, surprisingly, a submission was made on behalf of the State that sentence undergone only post-conviction should be considered … The High Court has accepted the said submission … Apart from the fact that the said approach is incorrect, we may note here 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 Supreme Court was addressing the pleas of two individuals convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Their requests to suspend their sentences while their criminal appeals were pending had been denied by the Gujarat High Court in June, prompting them to seek relief from the Supreme Court.
Previously, the High Court had sided with the State’s argument that the actual sentence served by the convicts was only five months, which was the time they spent in jail after their conviction, rather than the over four years that included pre-conviction incarceration.
The Supreme Court opined that the High Court should have taken a more favorable view of the convicts’ application, particularly since they had no prior criminal history and had already served more than 40 percent of the maximum sentence for their offense.
As a result, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal, directing that the accused be produced before the trial court within a week and released on bail.
Advocates Tejas Barot, Shamik Shirishbhai Sanjanwala, and Shantanu Parmar represented the convicts, while Advocates Kanu Agarwal, Swati Ghildiyal, and Devyani Bhatt appeared for the Gujarat government.
