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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has said India, till date, does not have a statutory sentencing policy in place, making the courts to examine the objective behind it and consider several factors including mitigating and aggravating circumstances before handing out the punishment.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Sanjay Karol pointed out it is a well-established principle that while imposing sentence, aggravating and mitigating circumstances of a case are to be taken into consideration. 

Referring to a Constitution Bench (5-judge) judgement in 'Jagmohan Singh v. State of U.P.' (1973) on the issue of constitutionality of imposition of death penalty, the bench said the court had then emphasised that aggravating and mitigating circumstances need to be considered in awarding sentence to a convict and the result is dependent upon facts of each case. 

It also cited SC judgement in 'Narinder Singh & Ors. V. State of Punjab & Anr' (2-Judge Bench) (2014), to point out in the absence of such guidelines in India, the courts go by their own perception about the philosophy behind the prescription of certain specified penal consequences for particular nature of crime. 

The bench also relied upon other SC judgements in cases of 'State of Uttar Pradesh v. Sanjay Kumar (2-Judge Bench) (2012), 'Purushottam Dashrath Borate & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra' (3-Judge Bench) (2015), 'Jasbir Singh v. Tara Singh & Ors. (2-Judge Bench) (2016), 'Vetrivel v. State represented by its Deputy Superintendent of Police & Anr' (2-Judges Bench) (2022) and 'Paneer Selvam v. State of Tamil Nadu' (2-Judge Bench) (2023) dealing with principles of sentencing devised by the courts.

The court examined various aspects of the sentencing while reducing the punishment from five years to three years rigorous imprisonment in an attempt to murder case lodged in 1973 at Varanasi, acting on appeal filed by convict Pramod Kumar Mishra.

"It can be seen that 39 years have passed since the date of offence and both the other accused persons have come to be acquitted. It is a matter of record that there was old enmity between the complainant and accused relating to the piece of land where the offence came to be committed," the bench said.

It also noted there are no criminal antecedents of the appellant that have been brought on record.  "Further, from the record, it cannot be said that the appellant acted in a premeditated manner, whatsoever," the court also said.

The bench also imposed Rs 50,000 fine on the convict which would be paid to complainant as compensation.

Case Title: PRAMOD KUMAR MISHRA vs. THE STATE OF U.P.