SADHA SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, Ex-Naib Subedar Sadha Singh, was tried by the General Court Martial and convicted and awarded life imprisonment and dismissal from service on 13.11.1986. The petitioner seeks his release from imprisonment on the ground that he has already undergone 16 years 8 months and 29 days of imprisonment, which is detailed in para 5 of the petition as under :- 1. Actual period spent in custody 11 yrs. 1 Month 0 day.

(2.) PERIOD spent in custody : 1 yr. 7 months 29 days.

(3.) SO far as the contention of the learned Standing counsel for the respondents regarding the provisions contained in Section 169(A) of the Army Act debarring the applicability thereof to the cases of persons sentenced to imprisonment for life, the same is not provided in the said section. For proper appreciation of the point, it will be useful to refer to the provisions of Section 169-A of the Army Act, which reads as under :- "When a person or officer subject to this Act is sentenced by a court-martial to a term of imprisonment, not being an imprisonment in default of payment of fine, the period spent by him in civil or military custody during investigation, inquiry or trial of the same case, and before the date of order of such sentence, shall be set off against the term of imprisonment imposed upon him, and the liability of such person or officer to undergo imprisonment on such order of sentence shall be restricted to the remainder, if any, of the term of imprisonment imposed upon him." "Section 169-A of the Army Act does not specifically exclude the case of a person or officer subject to this Act, who has been sentenced to imprisonment for life. The exclusion of such a case can neither be held by necessary implication. There is, thus, no merit in the submission of the learned counsel for the respondent."