ON Friday, the Supreme Court bench of Justices M.R Shah and B.V. Nagarathna, in State of Rajasthan vs. Banwari Lal, quashed the impugned judgment of the Rajasthan High Court that reduced the sentencing of Banwari Lal (accused no. 1) from three years of rigorous imprisonment to 44 days already undergone in confinement by him, without asserting the nature and gravity of offence committed by him.
The court observed, “The judgment and order passed by the High Court reducing the sentence is nothing but an instance of travesty of justice and against all the principles of law laid down by this Court in a catena of decisions on imposing appropriate punishment/suitable punishment”.
The High Court order dated June 6, 2015, was in response to a criminal appeal made by Banwari Lal, along with Mohan Lal (accused no. 2) for reducing their sentences on the grounds that the crimes occurred in 1989, and they have been facing trials for the last 26 years. Accused no. 1 also prayed for getting the benefit of probation.
The trial court had convicted and punished accused no. 1 under Section 307 for attempt to murder under the Indian Penal Code [IPC], amongst other offences. It was convinced that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the injuries inflicted by him on the victim Phool Chand were sufficient for causing death, in the ordinary course of nature.
Accused no. 2 was convicted for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means under Section 324 of the IPC. But he received the benefit of probation under Section 360 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The High Court, while partially allowing an appeal in favour of the accused no. 1 stated, “in my view, ends of justice would be met if the sentence awarded to the appellant Banwari is reduced to the period already undergone by him in confinement”. However, it dismissed an appeal by accused no. 2. Thus, the appeals before the Supreme Court was made by the aggrieved state against these orders. However, the appeal was filed by the state after a huge delay of 1,880 days.
The Supreme Court found the High Court’s order unsustainable and observed: “The High Court has disposed of the appeal by adopting shortcuts. The manner in which the High Court has dealt with and disposed of the appeal is highly deprecated. ”
The court referred to Soman vs. State of Kerala (2012), wherein the Supreme Court had stated that while exercising discretion in sentencing, the court has to take into account a combination of different factors such as proportionality, deterrence, and rehabilitation, among other things, which in this case the High Court totally failed to do.
The factors were reiterated in State of Rajasthan vs. Mohan Lal (2018) wherein the court observed, “Currently, India does not have structured sentencing guidelines that have been issued either by the legislature or the judiciary. However, the courts have framed certain guidelines in the matter of imposition of sentences. A Judge has wide discretion in awarding the sentence within the statutory limits.”
The judgment further stated, “Since in many offences only the maximum punishment is prescribed and for some offences the minimum punishment is prescribed, each Judge exercises his discretion accordingly. There cannot, therefore, be any uniformity. However, this Court has repeatedly held that the courts will have to take into account certain principles while exercising their discretion in sentencing, such as proportionality, deterrence and rehabilitation. In a proportionality analysis, it is necessary to assess the seriousness of an offence in order to determine the commensurate punishment for the offender. The seriousness of an offence depends, apart from other things, also upon its harmfulness”.
These grounds of exercising judicial discretion in sentencing have been well established in the case of State of Madhya Pradesh vs. Udham (2019). The Supreme Court noted that sentencing of crimes must pass the touchstone of three tests, namely, crime test, criminal test and comparative proportionality test.
Crime test
The crime test involves factors like the extent of planning, choice of weapon, modus of crime, disposal modus (if any), role of the accused, anti-social or abhorrent character of the crime, and state of the victim.
Additionally, under the crime test, seriousness needs to be ascertained. The seriousness of the crime may be ascertained by (i) bodily integrity of the victim; (ii) loss of material support or amenity; (iii) extent of humiliation; and (iv) privacy breach.
Criminal test
This involves the assessment of factors such as age, gender, economic conditions or social background of the criminal, motivation for crime, availability of defence, state of mind, instigation by the deceased or any one from the deceased group, adequate representation in the trial, disagreement by a Judge in the appeal process, repentance, possibility of reformation, prior criminal record (not to take pending cases) and any other relevant factor (not an exhaustive list).
The accused no. 1 had inflicted life threatening harm to the victim, and the maximum punishment he could have suffered was life imprisonment and/or at least up to ten years. The trial court had only taken a lenient view and sentenced him to three years of rigorous imprisonment. The high court could, therefore, not interfere in the discretion exercised by the trial court, especially when it did not consider the relevant mitigating and aggravating determinative circumstances, and that the sentencing requirement must pass the test of proportionality. Thus, the court also condoned the delay by the state in filing an appeal.
Sentencing is an important task in the matter of crime. As held in Alister Anthony Pareira vs. State of Maharashtra (2012): “There is no straitjacket formula for sentencing an accused on proof of crime. The courts have evolved certain principles: the twin objective of the sentencing policy is deterrence and correction. What sentence would meet the ends of justice depends on the facts and circumstances of each case and the court must keep in mind the gravity of the crime, motive for the crime, nature of the offence and all other attendant circumstances”.
Click here to view the Supreme Court’s judgment.
