The Allahabad High Court recently suspended a one-year jail sentence given to Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’ by an MP/MLA court in Allahabad in January this year in connection with a nine-year-old assault case.
The Court also ordered his release on the condition that he post a personal bond with two sureties in the same amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned, subject to fine deposition.
This order was passed by the bench of Justice Rajiv Gupta while admitting Nandi’s criminal appeal challenging his conviction in the assault case. The bench observed while hearing his application for Suspension of Sentence.
“After considering the opposing submissions made by learned counsel for the parties and a review of the record, it is clear that the appellant’s maximum sentence is only for one year, and the appellant is already on interim bail. Because the final disposition of the appeal will take a long time due to heavy dockets, the appellant has made a case for bail. As a result, the petition for sentence suspension is granted,” the bench ordered.
The case against Nandi, a Cabinet Minister for Industrial Development, Export Promotion, NRI, and Investment Promotion, was filed in 2014 on the grounds that his supporters attacked Samajwadi Party workers, fired at them, and used caste-based language at his instigation. In the case, the trial court sentenced him to one year in prison and a Rs. 10,000 fine in January of this year.
However, the Additional Sessions Judge/Special Judge, MP/MLA Court, Allahabad acquitted him of the charges of allegedly committing atrocities against Scheduled Caste members.
He appealed his conviction to the High Court, where his counsel argued in his application for sentence suspension that he is completely innocent and has been falsely implicated in the current case due to ulterior motives.
It was then argued that the lower court did not view the evidence and materials on record correctly. The AGA, on the other hand, could not argue that the appellant’s maximum sentence was one year, that he has no criminal history, and that he had already been released on interim bail in the case.
