The Supreme Court has clarified that its rules requiring convicts to surrender before their appeal could be admitted for hearing have overriding effect on any special provision of law under which they may have been granted bail by the trial court.
The ruling came from a vacation bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Altamas Kabir on separate appeals by three men convicted by a Special Court in Mumbai constituted under the Special Court (Trial of Offences Relating to Transaction of Securities) Act, 1992, which had suspended the sentence and the fine imposed on convicts.
The bench made it clear that their appeals shall be posted for hearing only after they surrendered and the proof of surrender was filed in the apex court.
Appellants' counsel Kamini Jaiswal had submitted that the Supreme Court Rules, 1966, had no application to the present case, as there was a special provision Section 9(4) of the act authorising the concerned court to regulate its procedure and it was in exercise of that power that the operation of the sentence was suspended.
She also pointed out that the apex court had in several appeals under Section 10 of the act directed suspension of the substantive sentence during hearing of the appeal subject to furnishing of personal bond and had not required the surrender of the accused appellants.