Electricity Equipment Theft: Supreme Court sets aside Allahabad HC 's order directing accused to undergo 18 years imprisonment
The right to personal liberty is a precious and inalienable right recognised by the Constitution and attending to such grievances, the Supreme Court performs a plain constitutional duty, obligation and function; no more and no less, it has been observed.
The Supreme Court on Friday set aside an order of the Allahabad High Court whereby a person accused of stealing electricity equipment was directed to undergo 18 years imprisonment.
In the case, the Trial Court had convicted the accused in nine separate cases but had specifically ordered that the two-year sentences in each case shall run concurrently.
This order was overturned by the High Court which directed that in view of Section 427 Criminal Procedure Code each term of conviction would commence at the expiration of the previous term.
Terming the High Court's order to be another glaring instance, indicating a justification for the Top Court to exercise its jurisdiction as a protector of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty inhering in every citizen, the CJI Chandrachud led bench said,
"....If the Court were not to do so, a serious miscarriage of justice of the nature which has emerged in the present case would be allowed to persist and the voice of a citizen whose liberty has been abrogated would receive no attention. The history of this Court indicates that it is in the seemingly small and routine matters involving grievances of citizens that issues of moment, both in jurisprudential and constitutional terms, emerge. The intervention by this Court to protect the liberty of citizens is hence founded on sound constitutional principles embodied in Part III of the Constitution."
Noting that the accused had already been in jail for a period of three years, the court found that the Trial judge, in the present case, granted a set off within the ambit of Section 428/Section 31 CrPC.
No specific direction was issued by the trial court within the ambit of Section 427(1) so as to allow the subsequent sentences to run concurrently, the bench also comprising Justice PS Narasimha said.
Top Court held that High Court should have considered that the convict was aggrieved by the conduct of the jail authorities in construing the direction of the trial court to mean that each of the sentences would run consecutively at the end of the term of previous sentence and conviction.
"The High Court ought to have intervened in the exercise of its jurisdiction by setting right the miscarriage of justice which would occur in the above manner, leaving the appellant to remain incarcerated for a period of 18 years in respect of his conviction and sentence in the nine sessions trials for offences essentially under the Electricity Act", said the Court.
Case Title: Iqram vs. The State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors