Rajasthan High Court: Sandeep Mehta, J. suspended the punishment awarded by the Additional Sessions Judge in the Sessions Case No. 46 of 2017, Udaipur. The co-accused of the same case already got relief from this Court.
The appellant, in this case, is convicted and sentenced for offences under Sections 307, 323/34 and 324/34 of the Penal Code. The applicant in the appeal has already served nearly four and a half years of punishment out of seven years of rigorous punishment awarded by the trial court. Whereas the Court already suspended the sentence awarded to the co-accused. Before giving any relief to the appellant, the Court looked into the previous convictions of the appellant. It was collected that the appellant did not have any other grievous criminal history, except for the present one. Hence, the Court decided that the applicant will be granted bail during the pendency of the appeal, following the principle of parity.
Section 389 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 provides for the provision of bail in certain cases and this Court suspended the sentence of the trial court till the final disposal of this appeal.
The Court asked the appellant to produce a personal bond of a sum of Rs 50,000 with two sureties of Rs 25,000 each. In addition, the Court ordered for his appearance in this court on 06-01-2020. The Court also ordered that the appellant will have to appear before the trial court in the month of January, of every year, until the appeal is decided. The appellant is also supposed to inform the trial court if he changes his place of residence or the sureties residence. The Court ordered the trial court to maintain attendance of the accused- applicant in a separate file. Further, this Court ordered the trial court to inform if the applicant does not produce himself. If so, then the High Court will cancel the bail of the applicant. [Mustaffa Sheik v. State of Rajasthan, 2019 SCC OnLine Raj 4477, decided on 04-12-2019]