V.K. PLANISWAMY AND ORS. Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN FIR No. 41/1985 under Section 3/5/9/35 of Official Secrets Act read with Section 120 -B of IPC registered at Police Station Tilak Marg, Delhi, appellants -V.K. Planiswamy, T.N. Kher, S.L. Chandna, S. Sankaran & Hirdesh Narain Chaturvedi were tried and convicted vide impugned judgment of 16th July, 2002 and vide order on sentence of 18th July, 2002 were sentenced to undergo RI for ten years each for the offence under Section 120 -B read with first part of Section 3(1) of Official Secrets Act and for offence under first part of Section 3(1) of Official Secrets Act. While appellants -T.N. Kher, S.L. Chandna & S. Sankaran were also awarded RI of three years for the offence under Section 5 of Official Secrets Act. However, trial court has directed that these sentences shall run concurrently. While entertaining the above -captioned five appeals, substantive sentence of appellants was suspended.

(2.) AT the final hearing of these appeals learned counsel for appellants has appeared and submits that the appellants -V.K. Planiswamy, T.N. Kher, S.L. Chandna, S. Sankaran & Hirdesh Narain Chaturvedi are present in person and are aged 83 years, 86 years, 74 years, 78 years & 71 years respectively and during trial they have remained in custody for almost two years and after the impugned conviction they have remained in custody for about three months.

(3.) UPON hearing and on perusal of the impugned judgment, I find that learned counsel for appellants has rightly not pressed these appeals on merits as I find that impugned judgment does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity. On the quantum of sentence, I find that appellants are fairly advanced in age and have faced the agony of trial and appeal proceedings for the last three decades and have remained in custody for about two years and therefore, the sentence awarded to them is reduced to the period already undergone by then while clarifying that this order shall not be treated as precedent. With aforesaid observations, these appeals are accordingly disposed of.