Merely Because Accused Has To Represent His Constituency, It Can’t Be Exceptional Circumstance To Stay Conviction: Bombay HC Rejects Congress Leader’s Plea
The Bombay High Court refused to stay conviction of Congress leader Sunil Kedar on the ground that merely because he has to represent his constituency, it cannot be an exceptional circumstance to stay his conviction.
The Nagpur Bench was deciding an application moved under Section 389(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) seeking stay to the judgment and order of conviction and sentence.
A Single Bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke enunciated, “Considering the object and purpose of Section 8(3) of the R.P.Act, merely because the accused has to represent his constituency, it could not be an exceptional circumstance for grant of stay to the conviction. An object of Legislatures in keeping away convicts from contesting elections is to be looked into while deciding such applications.”
Senior Advocate S.K. Mishra appeared for the applicant/accused while Special Public Prosecutor Siddharth Dave and Additional Public Prosecutor N.B. Jawade appeared for the non-applicant/State.
Brief Facts -
The applicant was a Senior Member of the Indian National Congress (INC), former Cabinet Minister of the Government of Maharashtra, and also a member (MLA) of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. He had filed an application before the Sessions Judge for grant of stay to his conviction, which was rejected by the order of the Additional Sessions Judge. The application was filed on the ground that the Judge without evaluating facts of the case, passed a mechanical order and rejected the application seeking stay to the conviction.
The accused allegedly entered into a conspiracy with other co-accused and misappropriated funds of the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank Limited (NDCC Bank) to the tune of Rs. 117.51 crores under a pretext of investment made by the said bank in the Government Securities through private brokers who in turn misappropriated funds of the bank by not purchasing the government securities in favour of the bank. The accused was therefore convicted and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 5 years along with a fine of Rs. 10 lakhs for the offence under Sections 409 read with 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The High Court in view of the above facts observed, “The ground raised by the accused is that his right of representation would affect, in view of disqualification, in the light of Section 8(3) of the R.P.Act. The purpose of the said Section is to ensure that the persons with criminal record are not to be elected to public office and this is legitimate aim in a democracy. Disqualifying a person who has been convicted of a serious offense from holding public office is in the interest of maintaining the integrity and credibility of the democratic process.”
The Court said that the aspect that the order of conviction and sentence suffers from inconsistency of evidence of the prosecution, at this stage, cannot be gone into. It added by saying that the accused is involved in the economic offences in the nature wherein public money is involved.
“A murder may be committed in the heat of moment upon passions being aroused. An economic offence is committed with cool calculation and deliberate design with an eye on personal profit regardless of the consequence to the Community. A disregard for the interest of the Community can be manifested only at the cost of forfeiting the trust and faith of the Community in the system to administer justice in an even handed manner with- out fear of criticism from the quarters which view white collar crimes with a permissive eye unmindful of the damage done to the National Economy and National Interest”, it further noted.
Accordingly, the Court rejected the application and refused to stay the conviction of the accused.
Cause Title- Sunil s/o Late Chhatrapal Kedar v. State of Maharashtra (Neutral Citation: 2024:BHC-NAG:6946)
Appearance:
Applicant: Senior Advocate S.K. Mishra and Advocate Ayush Sharma.
Non-applicant: SPP Siddharth Dave and APP N.B. Jawade.
