The Supreme Court bench of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Aniruddha Bose on Tuesday heard the matter of a rape convict who has undergone 13 years and 2 months of imprisonment and is undergoing additional imprisonment for not paying the fine which was imposed by the trial court.
On Tuesday, the bench ordered the matter to be listed on Friday for consideration of commutation of sentence of the petitioner, because the judgment of trial court was not produced by counsel of petitioner.
The judgment is to be produced before the Apex Court so that they can determine whether the sentence ordered by the trial court was concurrent or consecutive in nature. The Additional Advocate General of Uttar Pradesh Government submitted, “The maximum sentence under Section 376 IPC is 10 years and had the sentence been concurrent, the appellant…come out by this time.”
The petitioner has challenged the impugned order of Allahabad High Court wherein High Court has partly allowed the appeal by modifying the sentence of the trial court stating, “additional imprisonment imposed by the learned trial court against the petitioner, in default of payment of fine, is quite disproportionate and ends of justice will be served, if appellant-accused is sentenced to additional imprisonment of one month, three months and five months, in default of payment of fine imposed by the learned trial court under Sections 363, 366, 376(1) IPC respectively. Accordingly, the appeal deserves to be partly allowed.”
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The prosecution case is that a girl of 13 years had gone to school and didn’t return therefore her father filed a complaint with the police. After running pillar to post, the father of the victim girl got the information that the victim-girl has been enticed away by one Fahimuddin. Thereafter, a case under Sections 363, 366, 376 of IPC was lodged against Fahimuddin and the present petitioner (who was the co-accused). Thereafter, the trial court after examining the witness of the prosecution and after hearing the accused held that Sunil Kumar, the petitioner, is guilty under sections 363, 366, and 376.