Agartala, Nov. 4: Tripura Congress president Birajit Sinha got partial relief from the Supreme Court yesterday, which commuted his three-month jail sentence to one month, for carrying excess bullets in his licensed revolver.
Sinha had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment under the Arms Act by the Unakoti district and sessions court in 2013 for carrying 18 bullets instead of the 12 permitted for his licensed revolver though the court absolved him of the murder charge. On October 1, Tripura High Court upheld the trial court verdict. Sinha filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on October 26.
His appeal was heard by a division bench of Justices N.V. Raman and Ranjan Gogoi after Sinha's lawyer and senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid made a strong plea for quashing the punishment as his client was unaware of the provision of law and was in a tearing hurry because of a threat to his life. However, the court only commuted the sentence to one month. "Since he had already been imprisoned for 23 days after he surrendered last Friday, he will complete his term next Friday and will be released after the receipt of the Supreme Court order," said advocate Harekrishna Bhowmik, who assisted Khurshid.
The incident in which Sinha was sentenced had occurred on July 20, 2004. On receiving reports that CPM cadres were allegedly trying to capture booths in the ongoing panchayat election that day, Sinha, accompanied by his bodyguard Nikhil Deb, had gone there from his home in Kailasahar. Within moments of reaching the spot, he was surrounded by a group of armed CPM workers who allegedly tried to attack him. Sinha's bodyguard opened fire in which a CPM supporter Abdul Rahaman was killed. Deb himself was killed in firing by alleged CPM elements.
Sinha who had been carrying his licensed revolver with bullets surrendered the same to police and was arrested. He served a 21-day jail term before obtaining bail.
Sinha's jail sentence has cast a shadow over the Congress ahead of the civic polls. Former PCC spokesman Tapas De said, "The sentencing will have little impact. The main crisis in the party leadership."
