For Sharad Hiru Kolambe, it was crucial that he leave jail after having completed 14 years of his actual sentence, as his family has literally been starving in his absence.
Arrested in August 2001 on charges of kidnapping for ransom and subsequently sentenced for life under the Indian Penal Code and the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), Kolambe had spent the past 17 years in jail including the first three as an undertrial as there was no one to post bail for him.
So when the State government decided last year to release him for completing 14 years of his actual sentence, he must have harboured hopes of freedom. But Kolambe was in for a shock.
With each one of the offences he was punished for also having a fine component, he realised his inability to pay up would mean more time in jail.
Also, with the Maharashtra Women and Child Welfare department having already submitted a report that his family in Alibaug district was in a “state of starvation”, there was no one he could turn too.
While each of the four IPC offences for which he was convicted attracting a fine of ₹1,000 each, failure to pay the fine in the three MCOCA offences would cost Kolambe ₹5 lakh each. In short, Kolambe would have to cough up ₹15. 04 lakh or face another 10 years in prison.
Appealing on behalf of Kolambe, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves sought the Supreme Court’s intervention since the Bombay High Court had refused to give him any relief.
Mr. Gonsalves argued before a Supreme Court Bench of Justices A.M. Sapre and U.U. Lalit that there was no way “a person whose family was reduced to a state of starvation, can deposit payment of fine as directed”.
Kolambe, who had been set free by the State government, would have to spend another decade in prison for being poor and unable to pay an expensive fine, Mr. Gonsalves submitted.
The senior lawyer said the prison terms for not paying the fine should be clubbed and run concurrently. This way, Kolambe would serve only three years cumulatively, instead of 10 years, which is “unconscionable and excessive”.
But Justice Lalit, in a judgment on September 20 for the Bench, said prison sentences for not paying the statutory fine for a crime could not be clubbed as they would lose their deterrent value.
“Such an exercise would render the very idea of imposition of fine with a deterrent stipulation while awarding sentence in default of payment of fine to be meaningless,” Justice Lalit observed.
However, the court reduced Kolambe’s sentence for default on payment of fine to three years, agreeing that 10 years was indeed “excessive”.
