Travesty of justice if term gets over during appeal pendency: SC

NEW DELHI: Holding that it would be a travesty of justice if a convict completes his jail term while his appeal remains pending, SC has said bail should be granted to convicts in cases where the sentence, unlike life imprisonment, is of limited duration. If bail cannot be granted, then the appeal must be decided expeditiously, it held.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan expressed disappointment over Allahabad HC denying bail in violation of well-settled legal principles governing suspension of sentence in fixed-term cases. "The impugned order is one more from the Allahabad high court with which we are disappointed," the SC bench said at the start of its Aug 6 order.

"That is not the correct approach... HC should have been mindful of the fact that the appeal is of the year 2024 and is not likely to be taken up in the near future. Ultimately, if four years are to elapse in jail, the same would render the appeal infructuous and that would be a travesty of justice," the bench said.

Referring to its 1999 ruling in Bhagwan Rama Shinde Gosai vs State of Gujarat, SC said that when a convict is sentenced to a fixed period and appeals under statutory right, suspension of sentence should be considered liberally unless there are exceptional circumstances. "Of course, if there is a statutory restriction or if sentence is life imprisonment, the approach can differ," it added.

It set aside HC's order and remanded the case for reconsideration. "Such errors creep in only because legal principles are not correctly applied. Courts must examine subject, issue, and plea before applying law."