DILBAG SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB
Citation: [1979] 2 S.C.R. 1134; 1979 INSC 19
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER , D.A. DESAI, A.P. SEN
Judgment date:
Case summary
1979 INSC 19. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1979-01-25. DILBAG SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
1136 SUPREME COURT REPORTS A. DILBAG SINGH ". STATE OF PUNJAB January 25, 1979 [V. R. KRISHNA IYER, D. A. DESAI AND A. P. SEN, JJ. ] 8 .. Sentence-Senteucing power under Section 248(2) and s. 235(2) of the CrimiMl . Procedune Code, 1973 (Act II uf 1974)-Ne. ed for non-imtilution· alised sentendng and value of pre·sentencin~ investfgation reports while exer~ cising the right to sentence-Guidelines to be l1:iid down--Purpose of s. 366· of Criminal Procedure Code highlighted. I- In the ci! sc of a trial before a court of 5cssion, under s. 235(2) Criminal· Procedure Code "if the accused is convicted, the Judge sJlali, unlf'ss he pro--ceedi in accordance with the provisions of s. 360, hear the acCUled on the· question of sentence, and then pass sentence on him according to law. " Similarly, in the case of trial of warrant cases by Magistrates, under s. 248(2) of the Code, ''where the Magistrate finds the accused guilty, but does not proceed in accordance with the provisions of s.
325 or s: 360, he shall after hearing the accused on the question of sentence, pass sentence upon him according to law. " Section 361 of the Code mandates that "where ia any case, the court could! have dealt with :- (a) an ac.. cused person under s. 360 or under thC . Provisions of the Proba-lion of Offenders' Act, 1958 (Act XX of 1958) or; \o (b) a youthful offender under the Children Act, 1960 (Act LX of 1960)-jii or any other law for the ·time being in force for the treatment, training or rehabilitation of youthful offenders, but has not done- so, it shall record in its. judgment, the special reasons for not having done so. " Thus, under the Cri- .. ,_, minal Procedure Code, 1973, recourse to the provisions of s. 360 is a must. • In a trial aogain~t four persons charged by the Police with offences under ,I ss. 302, 324, 323 IPC, including constructive liability under s. 34, two were, "' acquitted by the trial ,court and two were convicted.
The appellant was sen-· • tenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year and a fine of Rs. 200 /- for causing simple injury to one Arjan Singh. He was held vicariously guilty under ss. 324/34 JPC and awarded two :,rears rigorous imprisonment and a ' fine of Rs. ' 1000/-. Jn addition he was convicted under s. 323 IPC, for I y causing hurt to the daughter of the deceased and on this count punished with· RI. for one year together with a fine of Rs. 200/·. , ·' Releasing the appellant on probation, the Court ' HELD : 1. Enacted law is guilty of inaction; because its obscure presence II on the statute book escapes the vigilance of the Bar. Where. even the Court ignores what is vital to the little man the guarantee of sentencia. g legality--becomes a casualty. [1135H, 1\36A] DILBAG SINGH v. PUNJAB (Krishna [~er, J. ) 1135 2. To jail an accused is mechanical farewell to the finer sentencing sensi- ' tivity of the Judge of salvaging lai redeemable man by non-institutionalised; treatment.
If the judge has before him a complete and accurate pre-sentence; investigation report which sets forth the conditions, circumstances, background, and surrounding of the accused and the circumstances underlying the offence which has been committe~ the judge could then impose sentence with greater· assurance that he has adopted the proper course. The purpose of s. 360 of • the Code is pre belonging to the joint family of himself and five brothers and the mother. Being a cultivator and living in the joint family circumstances the officer finds no adverse remarks against him in the locality. On t~e other hand, the report refers to his great respect for the former Sarpanch of the village. His family circumstances evoke commiseration ! >. :cause his father is dead having been murdered in 1960. His mother is alive and has ! o be maintained by himself and his two brothers wiJ,1 ar•· truck drivers and the third a jawan.
He has his own nuclear family • to mai'ntain with a young wile and four children. A pitiable factor is that his elder daughter is paralytic from birth. His social position shows that he belongs to a lower middle class fami'. y, lives by agriculture, loves his mother and brothers and has earned the good-will of his neighbours who think that the occurrence was induced by an irritating land issue and temporary intoxication. A sense of remorse has over-come him according to the Probation Officer·who says that he is a first offender a'nd not a recidivist. It is a painful fact, as noted in the report that this criminal case has cost him a tidy sum, loss of prestige and even family separation. ' In the unrefined English of the Probation Officer we may sum-marise his assessment of the offender : "It was met of an accident as offender-client Dilbag11 Singh s•eems to be law abiding and ·God fearing.
His one weakness is wine and that is the route cause of the pre,;ent diviation, otherwise on the whole offender's behaviour is normal and adjustable. The offender is in curab'. e stage as crime has not gone deep into him- He can be adjustable amicably within his 'normal and natnral environmental factors. The client can easily be reformed as he is neither professional II criminal nor exhibits any tendency to future deviation. " The social milieu, the domestic responsibilities, the respect for the former'Sarpanch he shows, the general goodwill he commands arc plus points. The tragic fact of his father's murder and the running misfor-tune of his young daughter's paralysed limbs are sour facets of his life. The circumstance that he is gainfully employed as agriculturist and his brothers, though in diverse occupations, remain joint family members, are hopeful factors.
The aggressive episode which led to his conviction was induced by the company of his cousin who serves a seven year sentence and the inebriation due to drinking habit. This simple vil-lager responsible and gentle, sad and burdened, repentant and drained of his little wealth by the criminal case, has a long way to go in lire being in his early thirtys. The drinks vice was the minus point. Many a peaceable person, on slight irritation, suffers bellicose switc\1-over ' under alcoholic consumption. How does judicial discretion operate in this skew of circumstances? To jail him is mechanical farewell to the finer sentencing sensitivity of the judge of salvaging a redeemable man by non-institntionalised treatment. The human consequences of the confinement process here will DILBAG SINGH v. PUNJAB (Krishna Iyer, l. ) 1139 ..
be no good to society and much injury to the miserable family and, • above all, hardening a young man into bad behaviour, with prestige punctured, family injured, and society ill-served. Nor was the crime such, so far as his part was involved, as to deserve Jong deterrent incarceration. Our prison system, until humane and purposeful re-forms pervades, surely injures, never improves. Prison justice has promises to keep, and ethological changes geared to curative goals are still alien-from dress and bed, refusal of frequent parole and insis-tence of mechanical chores, bonded labour, nocturnal tensions, and no scheme to reform and many traditions to repress-such is the zoologi-cal institutional realism and rehabilitative bankruptcy which inflict social and financial costs upon the State. (') It is wasted sadism to lug this man into counter-productive imprisonment for one year. Long years ago, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, in a forward-looking speech on John Day, said : "If the criminal's past history gives good reason to be-lieve that he is not of the naturally criminal type, that he is 0 capable of real reform and of becoming a useful citizen, there is no doubt that probation. viewed from the selfish standpoint of protection to society alone, is the most: efficient method that we have. And yet it is the least understood, the least developed, the least appreciated of all our efforts to rid society of the criminal. "(') The appellant has served a substantial part of his sentence in jail because of judicial innocence of the normae in the area of non-institutional disposition. It is easy to imprison, hard to individualise punishment. Sentencing legality is violated when the judge shirks. And the Bar is often alien to correctional alternatives and concentrates its ammunition on culpability and extenuatory scaling down of imprisomnent.
The observations of the United States Supreme Court in Williams v. New York (337 U. S. 241, 249) lay the right stress on prc-sen(cnce reports: "have been given a high value by cons~ienl ious judges > who want to sentence persons on the best available infor- , mati0n rather than on guess-work and inadequate infor- (1) Report by K. F. Rustamji, Member, National Police Commission on the de-plorable conditions in Indian Jails. (2) "Sentencing and Probation -National College of the State Judiciary, Reno, Nevada pp. 337. mation. To deprive sentencing judges of this kind of in-formation would undermine modern penological procedural policies that have been cautiously adopted throughout the nation after careful consideration and experimentation. " - Judge F.
Rayan Duffy has written : ' "If the judge has before him a complete and accurate pre-sentence investigation report which sets forth the conditions, circumstances, background, and surroundings of the defendant, and the circumstances underlying the offense which has been committed, the judge can then impose sentence with greater assuran~e that he has adopted the proper course. He can do so with much greater peace of mind. "(') • The purpose of s. 360 of the Code is precisely this; the goal of s. 235 (2) is just this. And yet, the exacting art is more honoured in the breach than in the observance if we many wrongly use a Shakespearean passage to drive home our point. We stress the legal position so that subordinate courts may not treat conviction as the terminal point but the end of one chapter. We are mindful of the complexity and remove the impression that easy resort to s. 360 is right. No; it is wrong. Two quotes set the record straight.
"Imprisonment is the appropriate sentence when the offender must be isolated from the community in order to protect society or if he can learn to readjust his attitudes and patterns of behaviour only in a closely controlled environ-ment. "(') "The consequences of a sentence are of the highest order. If too short or of the wrong type, it can deprive the law ol its effectiveness and result in the premature release of a dangerous criminal. If too severe or improperly con-ceived, it can reinforce the criminal tendencies of the defendant and lead to a new offence by one who otherwise might not have offended •o •erionsly again. ' The decision which is presented at sentencing is also • enormously complex. It properly is concerned, and often predominantly, with the future which can be predicted for the ' particular offender. But auy single-valued approach to sentencing is misdirected. A seuteuce which is not in some --- (1) "Sentence and Probation" pp. 362, 363. (2) Senlcncing &.
Probation 342. DILBAG SINGH v. PUN. JAB (Krishna Iyer, /. ) 1141 fashion limited in accordance with the particular offence can lead to a system of incomparable brutality. Per contra, a sentence or pattern of sentence which fails to take due account of the gravity of the offence can seriously undermine respect for law. "(') In this case, after perusal of the report of the Probation Officer, counsel for the State, Sri Hardev Singh, with fair candour and shared correctness, consented to a release of the prisoner under S. 360. We agi"ee. But one fact needs emphasis. The close nexus between vio-lence and alcohol is a call to the State in every criminal investigation to identify the role of alcohol in the commission of the offence and in every prisoner's treatment to provide for anti-alcoholic therapy. To fail here is vicarious guilt of the State to Society. We direct release of the appellant forthwith.
He will enter into a bond before the trial court together with Shri Dilbag Singh S/ o Babu Singh as surety in the amount of Rs. 1000/- within two weeks of his release to keep the peace, be of good behaviour, to abjure alcohol and not to commit offence for a period of three years and to appear and receive sentence, if called upon in the meantime. The appeal is allowed with this direction which is the Q. E. D. of sentencing justice. V. D. K. Appeal allowed. > • r (! ) Ibid 336.
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