J SUDHARSAN Vs. SUPERINTENDENT CHENNAI CENTRAL PRISON CHENNAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been filed under Sections 10 and 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act seeking to punish the respondent/contemner herein for having committed contempt of Court disobeying the order dated 27/30-8-1997 made in W.A.No. 102 of 1997.

(2.) The facts leading to the filing of the present application are:- By the order dated 18-12-1996 passed by the learned Single Judge, the applicants were found guilty of the offence under Section 193 IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years. They were also punished for contempt of 'Court and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for six months and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/-, in default, to undergo simple imprisonment for one month. The learned single Judge directed that the sentence of imprisonment imposed in both the cases to run concurrently. In respect of the above, cases they were arrested on 21-6-1996 and confined in Central Jail, Chennai.

(3.) On being aggrieved, the applicants filed an appeal before this Court in W.A. No. 102 of 1997. When this appeal came up for hearing, the applicants filed a memo stating that they do not wish to prosecute this appeal any further due to failing health condition and all that they wanted was that lenient view may be taken as regards the sentence of imprisonment imposed, without going to the merits of the appeal. They' requested through the memo that the sentence imposed upon them by the learned single Judge in W.P.Nos. 4538 to 4542 of 1996 and Contempt Application No. 182 of 1996 may be reduced to the period already undergone, since the rigorous imprisonment undergone by them till date amounted to two years including usual jail remission and special remission for the Golden Jubilee of Independence and that they may be set at liberty forthwith.