Hon’ble Supreme Court has allowed a Criminal appeal here on 07-01-2019 by stating that there is no harm in reducing the imprisonment if it is in the interest of justice.

The above decision was given in the case of Lalichan v. The State of Kerela in which hon’ble court declared that in the matters when

BRIEF FACTS OF THE CASE

The Appellant (Lalichan) was prosecuted for offence punishable under Section 8(2) and Section 63 of Kerela Abkari Act which was the case of keeping 4.5 litres of Arrack in a plastic can and 3.750 litres of Indian made foreign liquor. For this offence he was charge sheeted, found guilty and convicted. On Conviction, he was sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for 1 year and fine of Rupees 1 lakh under section 8(2) and a fine of Rupees 5 thousand under Section 63 of the act.

In the appeal to High court, the period of imprisonment was reduced from 1yr to 9 months. In the SLP files by seeking condonation of delay, Supreme Court issued notice confining only to the question of factum of sentence, leading to this appeal.

DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court held that the appellant herein was in custody for about thirty-five days and, by Order dated 07.09.2017 passed by the Learned Chamber Judge, has granted exemption from surrendering. The interest of justice would be met if the imprisonment is reduced to the period, already undergone by the appellant. As it stated that he was already in the custody for thirty five days, it was deemed to be appropriate to modify the sentence, for the period already undergone.

Thus, appeal was allowed but the penalty remained same as given by the High Court.

Read the full Judgement Here:

[embeddoc url=”https://www.sci.nic.in/supremecourt/2017/19137/19137_2017_Judgement_07-Jan-2019.pdf” download=”all”]