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Sanjit Saha & Anr vs The State of West Bengal

Not available · 2023 INSC 1085Decided 9 Oct 2023
Not available
K.V. Viswanathan

Background

Sanjit Saha and Anil Saha were convicted under Section 376(2)(g) IPC and sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment by the Calcutta High Court. They filed a joint Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court along with an application for exemption from surrendering, which was rejected in 2019 with six weeks given to surrender and file proof. Although both had in fact surrendered to custody on 15 March 2019, their counsel never filed proof of this surrender in the Supreme Court, and when the matter came up again in February 2020 with no proof on record and counsel absent, the Court ordered dismissal of the SLPs if proof was not filed within two weeks: proof never came (partly because their advocate-on-record later passed away), so the SLPs stood peremptorily dismissed in March 2020, even though both men remained lawfully in custody the whole time.

Decision Breakdown

Years later, Sanjit Saha's son engaged new counsel and filed for recall, producing a jail detention certificate proving the 2019 surrender; the Court restored his SLP. But an inquiry into co-petitioner Anil Saha revealed he had also surrendered on the same day, and tragically had died in custody on 26 May 2023 of natural causes, meaning he went to his death without ever getting his constitutional right to be heard on his Special Leave Petition, due purely to a communication failure between jail authorities, counsel, and the Court. Justice Viswanathan held that jail authorities bear a positive obligation under Article 21 to inform courts when a convict has surrendered, since prisoners are often incommunicado and cannot be faulted for their counsel's lapses; while Anil Saha's own petition necessarily abated on his death, the Court reserved liberty for his relatives to pursue remedies under Section 394 CrPC. The judgment laid down systemic guidelines. Courts should call for status reports from trial judges when surrender proof is missing, appoint amicus curiae when counsel is absent, and eventually build a digital portal for real-time surrender/custody updates, to prevent this from recurring.

Lesson Learnt

A convict who has actually surrendered to serve a sentence cannot be denied their right to appeal merely because of a communication failure by their lawyer or the jail system. Courts and jail authorities share a constitutional duty under Article 21 to keep each other informed, since an incarcerated person often has no other way to protect their own legal rights.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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