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Wednesday, Dec 05, 2007
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Punishment should be in proportion to crime: apex court

Legal Correspondent

Handle sex offenders with a heavy hand, lower courts told

New Delhi: Expressing concern over increasing incidents of sexual assault on women, the Supreme Court has directed all the trial and High Courts to handle sex offenders with a heavy hand.

Quoting an earlier judgment, a Bench of Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice Altamas Kabir said: “Judges who bear the sword of justice should not hesitate to use that sword with the utmost severity, to the full and to the end if the gravity of the offence so demand.”

In the instant case, Babulal of Daulatpur village in Madhya Pradesh was sentenced to seven-year imprisonment by the trial court for raping a married woman.

However, on appeal, the Madhya Pradesh High Court reduced the sentence to two months and three days, the period for which he was in prison before he was released on bail. The State preferred the present appeal against this judgment.

Set aside

The apex court set aside the impugned judgment and restored the sentence awarded by the trial court.

The Supreme Court has underlined the need for trial courts and the High Courts to follow the principle that punishment awarded by them in criminal cases should be in proportion to the crime committed by the accused.

“Every court must be conscious and mindful of proportion between an offence committed and penalty imposed as also its impact on society in general and the victim of the crime in particular. Sentence ought always to be commensurate with the crime,” said the Bench.

The Bench said “penal laws, by and large, adhere to the doctrine of proportionality in prescribing sentences according to culpability of criminal conduct. In practice, however, sentences are determined on other relevant considerations.”

“Unlawful intrusion”

Writing the judgment, Justice Thakker said “sexual violence apart from being a dehumanising act is also an unlawful intrusion of the right to privacy and sanctity of a female…”

The Bench said “once a person is convicted for an offence of rape, he should be treated with a heavy hand. An underserved indulgence or liberal attitude in not awarding adequate sentence in such cases would amount to allowing or even encouraging ‘potential criminals.’

The High Court had said that the respondent Babulal was an illiterate agriculturist from a rural area and no other reason had been given.

The Bench said “the case on hand exhibits not only a casual, indifferent and perfunctory approach but an insensitive attitude adopted by the High Court in awarding sentence on an offender who perpetrated a heinous crime of committing rape on a married woman in broad daylight.”

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