Supreme Court says no hard and fast rule that convict must serve minimum sentence before it can be suspended

The Supreme Court recently observed that there is no strict rule requiring a convict to serve a specified minimum sentence before applications to suspend the jail sentence can be heard by a court. [Vishnubhai Gangpatbhai Patel and anr. v. State of Gujarat].A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal made the observation on November 3 while considering a challenge to a Gujarat High Court order.Pertinently, the High Court had counted only the post-conviction jail time of two convicts as the period of sentence undergone by them while considering their plea to suspend their imprisonment sentence. In other words, the Court did not include their pre-conviction incarceration. The Supreme Court termed the High Court's approach incorrect. "Before the High Court, surprisingly, a submission was made on behalf of the State that sentence undergone only post conviction should be considered ... The High Court has accepted the said submission ... Apart from the fact that the said approach is incorrect, we may note here that there is no hard and fast rule which requires an accused to undergo sentence for a particular period before his prayer for suspension of sentence is considered", the top court observed..The top court was hearing pleas by two men convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Their pleas to suspend their sentence pending disposal of the criminal appeal were rejected by the Gujarat High Court in June, leading them to approach the Supreme Court for relief. Earlier, the High Court had accepted the State's contention that the period of actual sentence undergone by the convicts was not over four years but only five months, which was the jail term underdone by them after conviction..The Supreme Court opined that the High Court ought to have favorably considered the convicts' application, since they had no antecedents and had undergone incarceration of more than 40 percent of the maximum sentence for their offence..The appeal was, thus, allowed. The accused were directed to be produced before the trial court within a week to be enlarged on bail..Advocates Tejas Barot, Shamik Shirishbhai Sanjanwala, and Shantanu Parmar represented the convicts.Advocates Kanu Agarwal, Swati Ghildiyal, and Devyani Bhatt appeared for the Gujarat government..[Read order]