Sec.389 of Cr.P.C. – Stay of Sentence convicted under Sections 147, 148, 302/144 IPC read with Section – Grounds for granting – Apex court held that He has been working as a Principal and if the conviction is not stayed, he will lose his job, will be denied of his livelihood and he would not be in a position to participate in subsequent selection procedures conducted by the U.P. Secondary Education Services Selection Board, Allahabad are not the grounds for granting stay as he was convicted under sec.302 I.P.C. and sentenced to undergo for life imprisonment =
It
is the contention of the learned counsel for the appellant that he is
innocent.
He has been working as a Principal and if the conviction is not
stayed, he will lose his job, will be denied of his livelihood and he would
not be in a position to participate in subsequent selection procedures
conducted by the U.P. Secondary Education Services Selection Board,
Allahabad.
We are afraid none of these contentions can be appreciated. The appellant
has been convicted under Sections 147, 148, 302/144 IPC read with Section
120B IPC and is sentenced to undergo life imprisonment.
‘Convict’ means declared to be guilty of criminal offence by the verdict of
court of law. That declaration is made after the court finds him guilty of
the charges which have been proved against him. Thus, in effect, if one
prays for stay of conviction, he is asking for stay of operation of the
effects of the declaration of being guilty. =
It has been consistently held by this Court that unless there are
exceptional circumstances, the appellate court shall not stay the
conviction, though the sentence may be suspended.
There is no hard and fast
rule or guidelines as to what are those exceptional circumstances.
However,
there are certain indications in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
itself as to which are those situations and a few indications are available
in the judgments of this Court as to what are those circumstances.
It may be noticed that even for the suspension of the sentence, the court
has to record the reasons in writing under Section 389(1) Cr.PC.
Couple of
provisos were added under Section 389(1) Cr.PC pursuant to the
recommendations made by the Law Commission of India and observations of
this Court in various judgments, as per Act 25 of 2005.
It was regarding
the release on bail of a convict where the sentence is of death or life
imprisonment or of a period not less than ten years.
If the appellate court
is inclined to consider release of a convict of such offences, the public
prosecutor has to be given an opportunity for showing cause in writing
against such release.
This is also an indication as to the seriousness of
such offences and circumspection which the court should have while passing
the order on stay of conviction. Similar is the case with offences
involving moral turpitude. If the convict is involved in crimes which are
so outrageous and yet beyond suspension of sentence, if the conviction also
is stayed, it would have serious impact on the public perception on the
integrity institution. Such orders definitely will shake the public
confidence in judiciary.
That is why, it has been cautioned time and again
that the court should be very wary in staying the conviction especially in
the types of cases referred to above and it shall be done only in very rare
and exceptional cases of irreparable injury coupled with irreversible
consequences resulting in injustice.=
In the light of the principles stated above, the contention that the
appellant will be deprived of his source of livelihood if the conviction is
not stayed cannot be appreciated.
For the appellant, it is a matter of
deprivation of livelihood but he is convicted for deprivation of life of
another person.
Until he is otherwise declared innocent in appeal, the
stain stands. The High Court has discussed in detail the background of the
appellant, the nature of the crime, manner in which it was committed, etc.
and has rightly held that it is not a very rare and exceptional case for
staying the conviction.
We do not, thus, find any merit in the appeal and the same is accordingly
dismissed. However, we make it clear that the observations in this judgment
are only for the purpose of this order and they shall have no bearing while
hearing the appeal.
Discussion
Comments are closed.