Supreme Court expounds: Concurrent imprisonments are not to be cumulated for the purpose of suspension of sentence

April 30, 2019:

Supreme Court has held that concurrent imprisonments are not to be cumulated for the purpose of suspension of sentence.

A bench of Justice Sapre and Justice Maheswari has passed the order in case titled N. RAMAMURTHY vs STATE BY CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION on 26.04.2019.

Ramamurthy was tried as Accused No. 2 in Special Criminal Case No. 12 of 2002 for the offences under Section 120-B read with Sections 409, 420, 468, 471, 477-A of the Indian Penal Code ('IPC') and Section 13(2) read with Sections 13(1)(c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 ('PC Act'). The prosecution case had been that during the years 1995-96, Ramamurthy and the Accused No. 1, who were respectively working as clerk and manager in the State Bank of Mysore, 

Apex Court

entered into a criminal conspiracy and committed several acts of breach of trust, cheating, forgery, falsification of accounts and misappropriation of funds. It was, inter alia, alleged that the accused persons raised fraudulent debits to the extent of Rs. 23,53,090/- in various accounts maintained by the customers in the bank like Savings Bank Account, Current Account, Term Deposit, Reinvestment Deposit etc; and the amount so debited was fraudulently credited to the personal accounts of the appellant and was obtained by forging the withdrawals. He was convicted and sentenced.

During the appeal, the accused filed repeated application for suspension of sentence but the High Court each time rejected the same while observing that the sentence of imprisonment all put together comes to 45 years of rigorous imprisonment for all the proven guilt put together. Then he approached the Supreme Court.

The learned counsel for the appellant has strenuously argued that the High Court has approached the case from an altogether wrong angle while observing that the appellant has been awarded 45 years of imprisonment though the sentences were ordered to run concurrently by the Trial Court and hence, the maximum period of imprisonment is 7 years apart from certain default stipulations, which would come in operation only if the fine is not paid.

Supreme Court observed “We feel it imperative to restore the applications for consideration afresh for the fundamental reason that the approach of the High Court in dealing with the applications made on behalf of the appellant under Section 389 CrPC had apparently been from a wrong angle and on two major misconceptions: One, that the High Court assumed as if the sentences awarded to the appellant for different offences are to run consecutively i.e., one after another and, while taking sum total of the sentences so awarded, the High Court has proceeded as if the accused appellant has been ordered to undergo imprisonment for a whopping 45 years. No great deal of discussion is required to say that such an assumption by the High Court had been fundamentally incorrect and the High Court, obviously, omitted to notice that the Trial Court had specifically ordered that all the sentences shall run concurrently”.

Supreme Court further observed “It is not far to seek that when the High Court assumed that the appellant is to serve 45 years in prison, its consideration of the prayer for suspension of execution of sentence took entirely different dimensions. The applications ought to have been considered while keeping in view the fact that with concurrent running of sentences, the maximum period for imprisonment envisaged by the order of the Trial Court is 7 years”.

Read the order here:

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