Former Director General of Police Tomin Thachankary need not serve his four-year sentence while his appeal is pending, the Kerala High Court has ruled; the disproportionate assets conviction itself remains in place until the appeal is decided.
Kochi: Allowing a plea by former Director General of Police Tomin J. Thachankary, the Kerala High Court on October 15 suspended the four-year sentence imposed in a disproportionate assets case until his criminal appeal against the conviction by the Special Court (Vigilance), Kottayam, is heard. The detailed order is awaited [Tomin J. Thachankary v. State of Kerala].
The verdict on the suspension plea was reserved by Justice A. Badharudeen on September 24, 2026, after Senior Advocate B. Raman Pillai appeared for the former police chief and the Public Prosecutor for the State. The reasoning and any conditions attached to the suspension are yet to be made available.
What he was convicted of
The Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance), Kottayam, found Thachankary guilty under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and imposed four years’ imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 30.84 lakh. Section 13(1)(e) deals with a public servant who holds pecuniary resources or property disproportionate to known sources of income and cannot satisfactorily account for it.
As recorded in the appeal, the trial court’s findings were that, even after giving him the benefit of every material discrepancy established in evidence, about 52.33 per cent of his known income remained unexplained. He has challenged the conviction in Criminal Appeal No. 1239 of 2026, and the allegations on which the prosecution rested will be tested there.
The two sides on suspension
For Thachankary, Raman Pillai submitted that where a Prevention of Corruption Act sentence is below ten years, courts generally suspend it and grant bail pending appeal. He also argued that the trial court went wrong because about Rs 45 lakh had in fact been accounted for, which, he said, weakens the conviction. The Public Prosecutor opposed the plea, contending that a court retains the discretion to refuse suspension even when the sentence is under ten years; the State had earlier objected that this was an exceptional case.
Orally, during the hearing, the Court remarked that suspension of sentence is not automatic and rests on the discretion of the court in each case. It also asked how claims of money received from the appellant’s mother and others, supported only by oral evidence, could be acted upon in a disproportionate assets case without corroboration or being accounted for. These were remarks made in the course of the hearing; the final order will show what weighed with the Court.
What suspension does and does not do
A suspended sentence is not an acquittal, and the appeal is still to be decided. Suspension only means the convict is not required to serve the sentence while the appeal is pending, usually subject to conditions. Here, a former head of the State police stays out of prison until the appeal is heard, while the High Court is yet to decide whether the conviction, resting on the unexplained-income finding, can stand.
Case Title: Tomin J. Thachankary v. State of Kerala [Crl.A. No. 1239 of 2026]
Bench: Justice A. Badharudeen, Kerala High Court
Date of Order: October 15, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate B. Raman Pillai for the appellant; Public Prosecutor for the State