Supreme Court of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka: A Full Bench of Priyantha Jayawardena, L.T.B. Dehideniya and S. Thurairaja, JJ., dismissed an appeal.
The Second Suspect – Appellant (Appellant) was originally charged under Section 368 (a) of the Penal Code by the Magistrate of Embilipitiya on the 1st of December 2012, for theft of five cows and a buffalo where he had pleaded guilty and the Magistrate had sentenced him to 6 months rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 1500, in default one-month simple imprisonment, aggrieved by which he had filed an appeal in the High Court and submitted that the sentence was excessive and, that he should be given a non – custodial sentence. The High Court had dismissed the appeal giving reasons. Thus, the instant appeal. The facts were not disputed and the appellant had pleaded guilty the appeal was regarding the bargaining of the sentence.
The Court while dismissing the appeal stated that after the perusal of the judgment of the magistrate and the records it was found that according to the fingerprint record the Appellant had a previous conviction and the High Court had found him guilty under Section 140 and Section 300 of the Penal Code and had sentenced him for 6 months and 2 years respectively and the same was suspended for a period of 10 years and it would be violation of law if the appellant expects magistrate to impose another suspended sentence when he was already serving a suspended sentence pending against him. Consequently, the Court directed the implementation of the sentence. [Mohamed Irupan Impar v. Officer-in-Charge , 2020 SCC OnLine SL SC 1 , decided on 29-01-2020]
