The main legal point established in this judgment is that the continued detention of a convict beyond the period of sentence, without any other case pending against them, violates their right to personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Imprisonment or detention without legal sanction also violates Article 19(d) of the Constitution. The court emphasized the importance of upholding fundamental rights and awarded compensation to the appellant for the illegal detention.

JUDGMENT :

C.T.RAVIKUMAR, J.

This Special Leave Petition is filed assailing the judgment and order dated 19.7.2018 of the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur in Criminal Appeal No. 110/2015 whereby and whereunder the conviction of the petitioner under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’) was confirmed, but the sentence therefor, was reduced from 12 years to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment. Notice was issued on 04.03.2022. However, the said order and the subsequent order dated 21.03.2022 would reveal that it was, in troth, a limited one.

Leave Granted, accordingly.

A short prelude may be profitable for a proper consideration of the limited question (which we intend to go into) viz., whether the appellant is entitled to compensation for being kept in prison beyond the period of sentence and thereby sustained deprival of personal liberty.

1. While parting with the decision in Rudul Sah’s case1, this Court made a fervent hope -

“This order will not preclude the petitioner from bringing a suit to recover appropriate damages from the state and its erring officials. The order of compensation passed by us is, as we said above, in the nature of a palliative. We cannot leave the petitioner penniless until the end of his suit, the many appeals and the execution proceedings. A full-dressed debate on the nice points of fact and law which takes place leisurely in compensation suits will have to await the filing of such a suit by the poor Rudul Sah. The Leviathan will have liberty to raise those points in that suit. Until then, we hope, there will be no more Rudul Sahs in Bihar or elsewhere.” (Emphasis added)

That was a case where Rudul Sah, despite being acquitted by the Court of Sessions, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Rudul Sah vs. State of Bihar & Anr. (1983) 4 SCC 141 on 03.06.1968 was released from the jail only on 16.10.1982, idest, more than 14 years since his acquittal. A Habeas Corpus petition was then filed before this Court seeking his release on the ground that his detention in the jail is unlawful. Ancillary reliefs were also sought for. When the said writ petition was taken up on 22.11.1982, the learned counsel for the State of Bihar informed this Court that the appellant was released from the jail. Though the prayer for release from the jail had become infructuous, this Court went on to consider the writ petition in regard to the other reliefs sought for and held that his detention after his acquittal was wholly unjustified. Thereupon, this Court held: “Therefore, the State must repair the damage done by its officers to the petitioner’s rights. It may have recourse against those officers.” It is thereafter that the said writ petition was disposed of in the aforesaid manner and with the fervent hope extracted above.

2. True that the appellant cannot be said to be another Rudul Sah inasmuch as his case never ended in his acquittal, but only in confirmation of conviction with reduction in period of imprisonment. Nonetheless, his case, to be unravelled hereinbelow, would reveal continuance of contumacious act on the part of a State Government (of course, its officials) in keeping a convict in incarceration beyond the period of sentence of imprisonment, unmindful of the final verdict of the Court. Such an act is injudicious and indefensible when his/her continued confinement is uncalled for in connection with any other case. This kind of levity cannot be viewed with laxity and it is time to consider it on the legit. Freedom of movement can be curtailed or taken away by imprisonment or detention ordained after due process of law and in accordance with law. Imprisonment or detention sans sanction of law would violate Article 19(d) as well as the right under Article 21, of the Constitution of India.

3. In the case on hand the appellant Bhola Kumhar was made to stand the trial for the offence punishable under Section 376 of th