New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, August 22, set aside an order of the Kerala high court which suspended the conviction of Lakshadweep MP Mohammed Faizal in an attempt to murder case, asking the court to take a fresh decision on the matter within six weeks.
According to LiveLaw, the bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader can continue as a member of the Lok Sabha and will continue to have the benefit of the suspension of conviction until the high court disposes of the application.
In January this year, Faizal and three others were convicted for attempting to murder the son-in-law of a Congress leader during the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail, which meant that he was automatically disqualified from the Lok Sabha. The NCP leader received a reprieve when a single-judge bench of the Kerala high court suspended his conviction.
On Tuesday, the Justice Nagarathna-led bench observed that while suspending the conviction and sentence, the high court “had not considered the true position of law with respect to the manner in which an application for a stay on conviction must be considered”. The top court said that the HC’s thrust was on the prospect of conducting a fresh election and the concomitant expenses to the exchequer.
This, the Supreme Court said according to LiveLaw, “should not have been the sole factor to suspend the conviction”.
The single-judge HC bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas had suspended Faizal’s sentence soon after the Election Commission declared plans to hold a by-poll to fill the resultant vacancy. Justice Thomas expressed concerns about the “associated expenditures and observed that the newly elected candidate would be able to function only for a period less than fifteen months”.
The order was appealed by both the administration of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep and the complainant who accused the parliamentarian of attempting to murder him. It was in this appeal that the top court’s order on Tuesday was delivered.
While the Lok Sabha secretariat acted swiftly to disqualify his membership after the conviction, it was only restored over two months after the HC order and hours before the Supreme Court was to hear Faizal’s appeal about the delay.