4 days ago
5
The High Court of Karnataka has ordered the merchandise of a convict serving a condemnation for default successful outgo of fines successful cheque bounce cases, holding that helium cannot beryllium made to acquisition much than one-fourth of the maximum two-year condemnation prescribed for the offence, arsenic helium had already spent implicit six months successful situation for non-payment.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the bid allowing the petition filed by a 53-year-old antheral who had been sentenced by the proceedings tribunal to 3 months’ imprisonment successful each of 3 cheque dishonour cases for default successful paying the fines imposed upon his conviction.
₹11 crore fine
The cases pertained to the dishonour of 3 cheques issued by him towards repayment of a indebtedness from a backstage fiscal company. The proceedings court, portion convicting the petitioner, had sentenced him to wage fines totalling implicit ₹11 crore, with 3 months’ elemental imprisonment successful default of outgo successful each case. As the petitioner did not wage the good adjacent 2 years aft the proceedings court’s bid of conviction, and had expressed his inability to wage the amount, helium was taken into judicial custody to service a full condemnation of 9 months for default successful outgo of the fine.
However, the High Court held that the default imprisonment imposed connected the petitioner could not transcend one-fourth of the maximum punishment prescribed for the offence, arsenic mandated nether Section 65 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and its successor provision, Section 8(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
Article 21
Since the offence nether Section 138 of the NI Act carries a maximum punishment of 2 years, the High Court ruled that the default condemnation could not transcend six months per case. Observing that the petitioner had already undergone implicit six months’ imprisonment, the High Court held that continued incarceration would interruption statutory safeguards arsenic good arsenic law protections nether Article 21.
Meanwhile, the High Court clarified that proceedings initiated against the petitioner nether Section 421(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for attachment and betterment against his properties shall proceed independently and stay uninfluenced by the bid for his merchandise from prison.
