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Supreme Court of India was dealing with the petition challenging the judgment dated 24th November, 2020 passed by the High Court of Kerala where High Court upheld the conviction of the appellant under Section 55(a) of the Abkari Act.
Brief Facts:
The appellant under the leadership of co-accused (A3 to A5) was found dealing with spirit and for that purpose, A3 had taken house on rent. A3 to A5 bought 3000 litres of spirit in 86 cans each containing 35 litres and stored the same in two rooms on the upstairs of the above said house, and entrusted the same to the appellant (A1) and A2 to deal with it on commission basis. This was detected on 12th June, 1999 by PW10 and his police party. When the appellant and A2 came to know about the same, they attempted to commit suicide by inflicting injuries on the wrist portion of their hands, and thus, according to the prosecution, the accused committed offence under Section 55(a) of the Abkari Act and Section 309 IPC. The trial Court found the appellant (A1), A2 and A3 guilty and convicted them under Section 55(a) of the Abkari Act and A1 and A2 under Section 309 IPC. The High Court upheld the conviction of the appellant under Section 55(a) of the Abkari Act but modified the sentence to undergo simple imprisonment of two years and fine of Rs. 1,00,000/, in default of payment of fine, the appellant was directed to undergo simple imprisonment for one year and set aside conviction under Section 309 IPC.
SC’s Observations and Held:
SC after going through the record as well as statements of PW1 to PW11 and also the statement of the accused appellant recorded under Section 313 CrPC found no reason to deviate from the finding of conviction returned by the learned trial Court and confirmed by the High Court under the impugned judgment.
SC stated that, “at the same time, taking into consideration the overall aspect of the matter and the fact that 23 years have been rolled by this time from the date of incident and also noticing that there are no criminal antecedents against the appellant, while upholding conviction under Section 55(a), consider it appropriate to modify the sentence to simple imprisonment of one year and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,00,000/, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo simple imprisonment of six months.”
Case Title: Sunil Kumar v. State of Kerala & Anr.
Bench: J. Ajay Rastogi and J. C.T. Ravikumar
Citation: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(S). 907 OF 2022
Decided on: 22nd June, 2022
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