In an important verdict, Supreme Court has ruled that high courts on their own cannot enhance the punishment awarded to a person while deciding his/her appeal against conviction and sentence and said an accused cannot be worse off for appealing against a trial court decision.A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma on Wednesday said “no appellant by filing an appeal can be worse off than what he was”. In this case, a man had gone to the house of a neighbour in the night and hugged her but was caught in the act by the woman’s mother-in-law. Next morning, the woman died by suicide.Police slapped three charges on him – abetment to suicide, house trespass and outraging the woman’s modesty. The trial court convicted him for house trespass and outraging modesty. On his appeal, Madras HC additionally convicted and sentenced him for abetting the woman’s suicide.
