Nagpur: Justice Urmila Joshi -Phalke, at the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court, has allowed the application of Ashok Namdeo Choudhary, former General Manager of the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd (NDCCB), for suspension of his sentence and granted him conditional bail, as she has done in respect of his 4 other co-accused convicted and sentenced by the Trial Court of the Additional CJM, Nagpur, on December 22, 2023.
Earlier, his application for suspension of sentence was rejected by the District and Sessions Judge, on January 22 last. The trial court had convicted the applicant and sentenced him to suffer RI for 5 years and to pay fine of Rs 10 lakh for the offence of criminal breach of trust. He was also convicted under Sections 409 read with 120-B of the IPC, but no separate sentence was awarded. He was also convicted under sections 468 with 120-B of IPC with sentence of RI for five years with fine of Rs two lakh and also under sections 471 read with section 120-B with sentence and fine, in the case of Govt Securities scam of Rs 125.60 crore.
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According to the High Court, in view of the settled position of law, the prayer for suspension of sentence deserves to be considered liberally in view of the observations of the Supreme Court, unless there is any statutory restriction. The High Court has pointed out that in view of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case — Omprakash Sahni v Jaishankar Chaudhary and another, the applicant has made out a case for suspension of sentence.
The HC has suspended the substantive jail sentence awarded by the trial court to the applicant till disposal of his appeal before the first appellate Court. He has been granted bail subject to furnishing PR Bond in the sum of Rs one lakh and one solvent surety in like amount. The applicant has been directed to attend the appellate court regularly and not to seek any exemption, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Further he has been asked not to leave the jurisdiction of the District and Sessions Court , Nagpur, without prior permission of the said Court.
Advocate Tehsin Ahmed Mirza appeared for the applicant. Special PPs Raja Thakre with Ajay Misar represented the State.
