JUDGMENT

P. K. GOSWAMI, J.:—To adjust the duration of imprisonment to the 393 gravity of a particular offence is not always an easy task. Sentencing involves an element of guessing but often settles down to practice obtaining in particular court with inevitable differences arising in the context of the times and events in the light of social imperatives. It is always a matter of judicial discretion subject to any mandatory minimum prescribed by law.

2. Hegel in his Philosopy of Right , pithily put the difficulty as follows :-

"Reason cannot determine, nor can the concept provide any principle whose application could decide whether justice requires for an offence (i) a corporal punishment of forty lashes or thirty-nine, or (ii) a fine of five dollars or four dollars ninety-three, four, etc, cents, or (iii) imprisonment of a year or three hundred and sixty-four, three, etc, days, or a year and one, two, or three days. And yet injustice is done at once if there is one lash too many, or one dollar or one cent, one week in prison or one day, too many or too few."

3. The present appeal by special leave being limited to sentence we are to consider about the appropriate deserts for the appel