The Supreme Court has declared that a convict cannot be given less than the minimum sentence for an offence provided under the law.
Even the top court's power to do complete justice cannot be invoked to hand out less than the minimum sentence prescribed under the statute.
“Where minimum sentence is provided for, the court cannot impose less than the minimum sentence. It is also held that provisions of Article 142 of the Constitution cannot be resorted to impose sentence less than the minimum sentence,” a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta said.
The court allowed an appeal filed by the Madhya Pradesh government against a high court's order releasing one, Vikram Das, after 11 days of judicial custody for an offence under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989, but with an enhanced fine of Rs 3,000.
The trial court had held Das guilty for an offence under Section 3(1)(xi) (assault or use of force to any woman belonging to a Scheduled Caste) of the Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months with fine of Rs 500.
Section 3(1) of the Act provided for a punishment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to five years and with fine.
Therefore, the only question is whether the high court could award sentence less than the minimum sentence contemplated by the statute, the top court said.
It noted that since the conviction has not been disputed, the high court could not award sentence less than the minimum sentence contemplated by the law.
The top court set aside the high court's judgement and ordered the convict to surrender to serve the remaining sentence, awarded by the trial court.