SC: Heavy fine is against policy

In an important judgement on sentencing policy laid down in the Indian Penal Code, the Supreme Court has rejected the “evolution” of a new jurisprudence for imposing heavy fine in murder cases and other heinous crimes for which the minimum sentence is life or rigorous imprisonment of different duration.
A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and H.L. Gokhale disapproved the attempts by the trial court and the high court to imposition heavy fine of `2 lakhs against each of the three convicts from Rajasthan in a double-murder case and additional fine of `1 lakh for attempt to murder as it ran contrary to the sentencing policy defined in the IPC.
The apex court though upheld the life sentence to Manjit Singh, Kamlesh Kumar and Pradhuman Singh for killing two persons when they had attacked a group of people at “Hanuman” temple in Mangrol in September 1998 due to old enmity, awarded by the trial court and the Rajasthan HC, but it slashed the fine from `2 lakhs against each to `10,000.
Similarly, the top court also upheld the additional sentence of 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment to the three for attempt to murder as they had inflecting grievous injuries on some other persons present in the temple but reduced the fine for the offence from `1 lakh to `5,000 against them. “We find that apart from the sentence of life imprisonment, the appellants have been punished with fine of `2 lakhs each with on default the sentence of five years under section 302 (murder) and additionally a fine of `1 lakh each with the default sentence of two years under section 307 (attem-pt to murder) of the IPC. We are of the view that imposition of such heavy fine with such stringent default sentences is not warranted,” the bench said. The SC also reduced the sentence awarded for “default” in payment of fine accordingly from five years to six months and from two years to three months for each of the two offences while dismissing the appeals of the three convicts.
“There is no reason for us to interfere with the judgements of the courts below insofar as the conviction of the three appellants is concerned,” the bench said stating that there were sufficient evidence on record to prove their guilt.

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