New Delhi, Feb. 8 -- Courts should normally suspend sentences and grant bail in cases where an appeal challenging the conviction is unlikely to be heard before the completion of the sentence, the Supreme Court remarked recently, and expressed discontent with the approach of denying bail in several deserving cases.
A bench led by justice AS Oka, which was dealing with a case pertaining to a person serving a five-year sentence being denied bail by the Madhya Pradesh high court, remarked: "Notwithstanding several decisions of this court holding that when there is a fixed term sentence and especially when the appeal is not likely to be heard before completing entire period of sentence, normally suspension of sentence and bail should be granted...