SATTO & OTHERS v. STATE OF U.P.
Citation: [1979] 3 S.C.R. 768; 1979 INSC 90
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER , R.S. PATHAK
Judgment date:
Case summary
1979 INSC 90. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1979-04-26. SATTO & OTHERS v. STATE OF U.P. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
7 70 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1979] 3 S. C. R. SAITO & OTHERS v. STATE OF U. P. April 26, 1979 [V. R. KRISHNA IYER AND R. S. PATHAK, JJ. J • Utiur Prade. sh Children Act 1952 and approved School!. under it, Sectio11s 2(4), 29, 30, 34, 60, 68, 70, 79 and 79, Scope of- Three Petitioners between the ages of 10 & 14 . ::ame by an eleven year eld girl, tending cattle in a village, near a neglected btick kiln which temptingly offered protective privacy for committing rape. T! iey ndvanced towards the: victim 11nd tied her up. They forcibly went through the exercise of rape. The courls beJO\V have held the three petitioners guilty of an offence under section 376 J. P. C. and sentenced each to two y~ars' rigo1ous imprisonment. The offenders being children the dilemmatic issue is to fix the. sentencing guide•lines for juvenile delinquents. It was argued that "Justice and the Child" is a distinct jurisprudential criminological branch of 3ocio~leg - SATTO & ORS v. U. P. STATE (Krishna Tyer, J.
) 77 3 30. Power to discharge youthful offender or to commit him to suitable custody. - (1) A court may, if it thinks fit, instead of directing any youthful offeader to be detained in an approved school, order him to be-- (a) discharged after due admonition; or (b) released on probation of good conduct and committed to the care of his parerrt or guardian or other adult relative or other fit person, on such parent, guardian, relative or person executing a bond, with or without sureties, as the Court may require, to be responsible for the good behaviour of the youthful offender for any period not exceeding three years and for the observance of suc! J:- other conditions as the Court may impose for securing that the youthful offender may lead an honest and industrious life. The Court may order that the youthful offender released under this clause may be placed under the supervision of a Reformation Officer or of some other person appointed for the purpose by the Court.
( 2) If it appears to the Court on receiving a report from the Reformation Officer or otherwise that the offender has '. llot been of good behaviour during the period of the probation, it may, after making such inquiry as it thinks fit, order the offender to be detained in an approved school. • Indeed, a conscientious· judge may consider it of better service to :society : "If the criminal's past history gives good reason to be· lieve that he is not of the naturally criminal type, that he is capable of real reform and of becoming a useful citizen, there is no doubt that probation, viewed from the selfish ltandpoint of protection to society alone, is the most efficient method that we have. And yet it is the least understood, the least deveioped, the least appreciated of all our efforts to rid eociety of the criminal. " "The basic idea underlying a sentence to probation is very simple.
Sentencing is in large part concerned with 1lVoiding future crimes by helping the defendant learn to live pmductively in the community 1 bich he has offended against. Pm bation proceeds on the theory that the best way to pursue this goal is to orient the criminal sanction toward the community setting in those cases where it is compatible with the other obj•ectives of sentencing. Other ·things being equal, the odds are that a give'n defendant will learn how to live suc-cessfully in the general community if he is dealt with in that community rather than shipped off to the artificial and a typi- > cal environment of an institution of confinement. Banish-ment from society, in a word, is 'not the way to integrate someone into society. Yet imprisonment involves just such banishment-albeit for a temporary sojourn in most cases. This is of course not to say that probation should be used in all cases, or that it will always produce better resulls.
There are many goals of sentencing, some of which in a give'n case may require the imposition of a s•. entence to imprisonment even in the face of a conciusion that probation is more likely to assure the public that the particular defendant will not offend again. And there are defendants as to whom forced removal from the environment which may in some part have co'ntributed to their offence may be the be11t beginning to a constructive and useful life. "(') Appeal and revision provided under s. 79 of the Act involve the higher courts in the process. We are sad that this crucial judicial task has been discharged with lesser awareness of its seriousness and com-plexity than necessary. For instance the Sessions Court, oblivious of the offender and obsessed with the offence, in brief confirmation, ~pent one sentence on sentence. • "Due to seriousness of the crime there is no justification to release the appellants on probation.
" )- The High Court devoted a paragraph but was upset by the Criminal act and closed its mind to salvaging the sentence : "Lastly, it is urged that the sentence awarded to the revisionists be reduced in view of their ages. I am reluc-tant to do so because they committed a crime which repels against moral conscience. They chose a girl of 11 years to satisfy their lust. They spoiled her life by committing this offence as her father would experience considerable diffi-culty in arranging her marriage. They were so cruel that all the three committed rape on that minor child. Such an act deserves to be deprecated. The sentence awarded by the (1) Sentencing and Probation-National Co1lege of the State Judiciary Reno, Nevada, p, 258. • SATTO & ORS v. U. P. STATE (Krishna Iyer, !. ) 77 5 learned lower courts does not at all err on the side of severity. Moreover, the learned lower courts have already shown sym1pathy by keeping them in an approved school at Etawah.
" While the victim needs reparation, failure to pay heed to, which • is a blind spot in our criminal justice system, the offender's circumstances are material in sentencing, omission to notice which is a sys-temic, though traditional failing. We find no emphasis on the age antecedents, parental and social circumstances and curative possibili-ties or Reformation Officer's report bearing on the three children punished. The Children Act makes meticulous prov1S1ons which slumber on the statute book and seek no visa into the court room. We hope this elaborate discussion will activate sentencing wisdom vested in the criminal courts. At this late stage, without prolonging the process, we can only direct some pragmatic steps. No report from a Reformation Officer is avail~ble. No consideration of the social milieu, personal antecedents, p. arental influences, educational status and other material fac- Ii tors is apparent i'n the judgments.
Nor, indeed, ii; there any serious - advertance to the advantages of community-oriented reformation or ' • the disadvantages of institutional inter-mix and quasi-incarceration. The juvenile detention system, it must be noted, has not fulfilled itself even i'n countries where it is heavily funded like in the U. S. A. where •~ the young delinquents are "penned like cattle, demoralized by lack of activities and trained staff, often brutalized. Over half the facilities in -< • which juveniles are held have no psychiatric or social work :~· staff. A fourth have no school program. The median age '4 of detainees is fourteen; the novice may be sodomized with- ·-Z. < in a matter of houNl. Many have not been charged with a I ,J. crime at all. From New York to California, the field reports "' repeat themselves depressingly. (') Our 'approved schools' like our adult prisons sometimes remind us of animal farms, if only judges care to visit jails.
These blemishes, in far worse measure, have blighted our Homes • and Schools and approved custodial institutions, although our correc-. tional repertory, augmented by meditational, recreational and oriented Gandhian tools, may inexpensively expand and deepen the rehabi- (1) Patricia M. Wald, Pretrial Detention for Juveniles-Pursuing, Justice for the Child ed. by Margaret K. Rosenheim, p. 119. litative potency of our sentencing strategies in this area. Be that as it may, the U. P. Children Act appears to have been virtually given a go-bye in the courts below, a phenomenon which frequently happens because practising lawyers and judicial officers have not yet given the deeper reflection that welfare-oriented rehabilitative legislations of the mentally and morally retarded in the criminal justice field deserve. The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, has made provision in s.
360 to deal with persons under 21 years of age convicted of offences_, punishable with imprisonment for a term of seven years or less and s. 376 I. P. C. , cannot come within its purview . But the U. P. Children Act defines a 'youthful offender' to mean "any child who has been found < to have committed an offence punishable with transportation or im- ~ prisonment". Thus, life imprisonment for the offence does not take the delinquent out of the category of youthful offender as defined in s. 2(13) of the said Act. Section 30 authorises the Court, if it thinks fit, instead of directing any youthful offender to be detained in an approved school, order him to be released conditionally, as earliec indicated. We think that the present case deserves action undec s. 30. Rape is horrific True. The victim is a pathetic child and deserve£ not merely commisseration but also compensation, an aspect which the State will take note of when a proper application is made to it.
Our immediate problem is the disposition of the appellants who are nlsB very young. They have served out some term in an 'approved school' which, making a realistic appraisal, is a 'junior jail'. It is not as if these little lads are incorrigible rapists or violent toughs running amok. Parental neglect, tempting opportunity, sex perversionslibad-ences (sic) libidinous environs and a host of other factors where state in-action is contributory to exciting adolescent erotica, count for vulgar, vicious or violent delinquency. These boys can and should be reha-bilitated, and that is done best by obligating the parent to take care of the children concerned and not by institutionalised custody. Section 3C of the Act is attracted by the facts of this case to the extent we are able to glean from the meagre material on record.
We hope that when children are brought before court, the provisions of the Childrea Act will be remembered by the Bench and the Bar and its rehabilitative engineerillg set in motion. • In the present case, we direct the appellants to be released on probation of good conduct and committed to the care of their respective parents and if no surviving parent then their guardian executing a bond each, without sureties, to be responsible for the good behaviour ...... SATTO & ORS V. U. P. STATE (Pathak, J,) 777 • -< of. the youthful offender for a period of two years from the date of release and for the observance of a condition, namely, that the child shall be put to school or continue its studies if it is already at school and attend any recreational or meditational centre if any, of the parent's choice regularly. Many systematic experiments, acknowledged in ..
prison reports and judgments of trial courts have proved the thera-pentic value of transcendental Meditation viz-a-viz juvenile delinquents. (') The Reformation Officer having jurisdiction over the locality shall have supervision over each of the appellants and shall make a report once in three months to the trial court. If the report shows laps into bad behaviour, the court may direct detention of the ( deviant appellant or appellants in an approved school. 'The Reforma- ' tion Officer will explain to the parents of the delinquents and the appellants the import of this order so that they may appreciate the necessity for compliance therewith and cooperate in the rehabiliatory process.
' ~ I may venture a view in conclusion that the revolutionary contri-bution Indian culture may make to criminology is apt to be the focus 1 on human consciousness whose mutilation leads to sickness, crime and sorrow and whose restoration, collective and individual, is 1he insurance against psychic stress and its off-shoots-crime and related maladies. The technology of setencing must release man from dis-tortions and pressures on lines ancient and modern. "This parenthesis, in a sense, argues for the new orientation in juvenile justice. A copy of this order will be sent to the approved school, Etawah, and to the trial Judge for immediate compliance. A copy of the order will also be served on the Advocate for the appellants for communi-cation to and compliance by his clients and to the Home Department -{ for correctional actions. PATHAK, J. The petitioners were convicted by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, Aligarh for the offence under s.
376 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment. He • (l) a. fn the Superior court of the State of Arizona dt. March 5, 1976 in Stateo Arizona V. Jean Coston Preslay-Case 6878. b. Criminal action 4-81750 in the U. S. Direct court for Eastern District of Michigan-United States of America V. Robert Charles Rusch, Jr. ~, c. Kentucky U Vol. 60, 1971 72 No. 2 and University of Mary Land Law 'ill Forum Vol. VIII No. 2 Winter 1973-article by David E. Sykes. d. Hiralal Mallick v. State of Bihar [1978] l"SCR 301. l e. ~pter 9, Juvenile Delinquency and the T. M. programme, Freedom from Crime by Roger Glenn Lanphear p-159 (Nellon Publishing Co Ny) 1! -330SCI/79 . . .. , ' directed their detention for the period of their sentence in an approved school at Etawah. Their appeal was dismissed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Aligarh. The High Court dechned to inter-fere in revision.
From the material on the record it is not possible to say that the finding of the courts below that the petitioners committed the offence is not substantiated by the evidence on the record and, in my opinion, no case has been made out for interfering with the conviction. But so far as the sentence is concerned, I think that the High Court and the courts below have not sufficiently appreciated the need for a proper order. Special leave granted on the question of sentence only. Order on the appeal The appellants are children. At the time of the offence the age of the three appellants ranged between 10 years and 14 years, the youngest, Satto, being 10 and the eldest, Bucha, being 14. They were cutting Rizka in their village fields when Kumari Bismillah, who was then about 12 years old, passed by grazing her cattle.
Apparently, the three youngsters were seized with the temptation of having sex with her and borne on that impulse they forced the girl inside a brick kiln and committed rape on her, after securing a bystander, Baboo, who was also grazing his goats at the spot, to a tree. There can be no doubt that the act cannot possibly be condoned. It calls for severe condemnation by the plainest moral standards. But on the question of sentence, the High Court and the courts below have, almost mechanically, affirmed a sentence of two years imprisonment to be served out by detention in an approved school. They have failed to • apply their mind to considerations which are relevant when a youthful offender is sentenced. The U. P. Children Act, 1951 contains two provisions in that regard.
Section 29 provides that where a child is found to have committed an offence punishable with transportation or imprisonment, the court, if satisfied an inquiry that it is expedient so to deal with the child, may order him to be sent to an approved school for a stated period. Section 30 provides . - "30. Power to discharge youthful offender ot to Commit him to suitable custody . • (1) A court may, if it think fit, instead of directing any youthful offender to be detained in an approved school, order him to be - (a) discharged after due admonition; or (b) released on probation of good conduct and committed to the SATTO & ORS v. U. P.
STATE (Pathak, J,) 7 79 care of his parent, guardian or other adult relative or other fit person on such parent, guardian, relative or person executing a bond, with or without sureties, as the court may require, to be responsible for the good behaviour of the youthful offender for any period not exceeding three years and for the observance of such other • conditions as the court may impose for securing that the youthful offender may lead an honest and industrious life. -, The Court may order that the youthful offender released under this clause may be placed under the supervision of a Reformation Officer or of some other person appointed for the purpose by the Court. ' (2) If it appears to the Court on receiving a report from the Reformation Officer or otherwise that the offender has not been of good behavior during the period of the probation, it may after making such inquiry as it thinks fit order the offender to be detained in an approved school.
" Almost invariably the question will arise whether the youthful offender should be proceeded against under s. 29 or s. 30 The answer to the question lies in the judgment of the Court, which judgment must be made in the sound exercise of its discretion. Among the considerations to which the court must apply its mind are the age of the child his family background, his general past conduct and antecedents, the circumstances in which he committed the offence, and • which of the measures provided by the statute, s. 29 or s. 30, will more effectively and yet not harshly enable the child to develop into a responsible member of society. It must be remembered that the U. P. Children Act deals with children, and a "child" is defined by s. 2(4) as a person under the age of sixteen years. The Statute is concerned with a person whose personality, judgment and discretion has not yet attained maturity. The primary object then must be to place the child.
in an environment conducive to his rehabilitation and providing scope for corrective action. That appears to be the basic criterion for determining the choice between s. 29 and s. 30. In • a case where the child has acted on impulse in committing an offence, and there is nothing to show the presence of any vicious streak of character, it would be more appropriate to leave him to the care and attention of parental ,authority rather than to send him to an approved school. That will depend, however on wheth~r parental attention • is possible and forthcoming and whether it does not suffer from want of sufficient effectiveness in moulding the proper moral development -r ... of the child. In my opinion, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the present case the order contemplated bys. 30(1) (b) of the Act would more appropriately meet the ends of justice and serve the objcet of the statute. • Accordingly, the appeal is allowed on the question of sentence.
The sentence imposed by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge and affirmed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge and the High Court, is set aside. The appellants are ordered to be released on probation of ,_.. good conduct and to be committed to the care of their respective """"'"' parents, and if there are no surviving parents then their guardian, on -~ such parents or guardian executing a bond each without sureties, to · be responsible for the good behaviour of the youthful offender for a • period of two years from the elate of the release and for the observance of a condition that the child should be put to school or continue his studies if he is already in school, and regularly attend any recreational centre or meditational centre (if any) of the parent's choice. The Reformation Officer enjoying jurisdiction in the locality will have supervision over each of the appellants and shall make a report once every three months to the trial court.
The Reformation Officer will explain to the appellants and their parents the import of this order. A copy of this order will be sent to the approved school, Etawah, and to the trial court for immediate compliance. A copy of the order will also be served on counsel for the appellants for wmmwfi-cation to, and compliance by, the appellants. ----·- • N. K. A. Appeal allowed. }-- .. •
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