SC censures delivering judgement without supplying copy

New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) The Supreme Court today strongly deprecated the tendency of delivering judgement without supplying the copy of the judgement to the convicted person.

The observation came during the hearing, when one of the petitioners sought his release on bail on the ground that Bombay High Court had not delivered a reasoned judgement though his appeal was dismissed two months ago and hence his right to appeal against the High Court judgement had been taken away and this court had already granted interim bail to Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt and other convicts in 1993 bomb blast case on the same ground.

A bench comprising Justices BN Agarwal, PP Naolekar and DK Jain cautioned Bombay High Court against such practice and observed ''Bombay High Court is following the footsteps of Allahabad High Court which also took a long time to supply a copy of the judgement after pronouncing the judgement.'' As per law the convict is entitled to get a copy of judgement of conviction and sentence immediately after the judgement is pronounced to enable him to challenge his conviction and sentence in a higher court.

According to the Supreme Court ruling in State of Punjab Vs Jagdev Singh Talwandi the detention of a person without giving him a copy of the judgement was not justified and his or her liberty cannot be curtailed till a copy of the judgement was supplied to the convicted person.

The Supreme Court had already granted interim bail to over a dozen convicts including Sanjay Dutt, as they had not been given a copy of the judgement by the TADA court. The condition of bail was that all the convicts would have to surrender immediately after getting the copy of the detailed judgement.

UNI