JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:— A short paragraph might perhaps have been sufficient as obituary note on this Special Leave Petition but two basic issues - one of prison justice and the other of sentencing caprice-challenge our attention and deserve more elaboration.

2. The facts, more flabbergasting than fantasy, present themselves in this Special Leave Petition. The appeal is against a conviction concurrently rendered for a novel and daring set of crimes and follow up sentence of three year prison term. The offence is bizarre, the offender perplexing, the sentence incredibly indiscreet at the Sessions Court stage but reasonably just at the High Court level and, to cap it all, the delay in seeking leave from this Court doubly shocking because it is inordinate and implicates the prison administration.

3. A miniaturised version of the prosecution, which has culminated in the conviction, is all that is necessary in view of the ultimate order we propose to make. The petitioner, a Reader in the Saurashtra University, claims to be a Ph. D. of Karnataka University, although there is a controversy as to this high academic qualification being a fabrication. In the present case we are not concerned with it directly. His moot academic proficiency apart, his abortive enterprise in another field has landed him in the present criminal case. According to the prosecution, Dr. Hoskot, the petitioner, approached Dabholkar, a block-maker of Bombay, placed an order to prepare an embossing seal in the name of the Karnataka University, Dharwar, and forged a letter of authority, purporting to have been signed by the Personal Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor of the said University authorising him to get the seals made. This Project Counterfeit Degrees, if we may so call it, had, perhaps, as its object the concoction of certificates of degrees by the Karnataka University. A degree-hungry community like ours offers a happy hunting ground for professionals in the fine art of fabricating academic distinctions. If the expertise is perfect and its exercise undetected there is more money in it than in an honest doctorate. Anyway, the petitioners mis-adventure was intercepted before it could fulfill itself because Dabholkar, the Bombay block-maker, was too clever a customer. He gave pre-emptive information to the police leading to the unearthing in time of the criminal scheme. The Sessions Court tried the petitioner and held as proved beyond reasonable doubt that the petitioner was guilty of the grave offences charged, namely, under Ss. 417 read with 511 I. P. C., S. 467 I. P. C., S. 468 I. P. C. and S. 471 read with S. 467 I. P. C. After having rendered this draconian verdict against a person who was a Reader in a University and claimed to be M. Sc., Ph. D., around 30 years old and coming from a middle-class family beyond economic compulsions to make a living by criminal means, the court swerved towards a soft sentence of simple imprisonment till the rising of the court and some fine. We are scandalized by this soft justice syndrome vis-a-vis white collar offenders. It stultifies social justice and camouflages needed severity with naive leniency. However, two appeals were carried to the High Court, one by the petitioner against his conviction and the other by the State at the naive sentence. The High Court dismissed the appeal against the conviction and, in allowance of the States prayer for enhancement, imposed rigorous imprisonment for three years. The present petition for special leave to appeal is against this heavy sentence.

4. The High Courts judgment was pronounced in Nov. 1973 but the Special Leave Petition has been made well over four years later. This hiatus may appear horrendous, all the more so because the petitioner has undergone his full term of imprisonment during this lengthy interregnum. The explanation offered by him for condonation of the delay, if true, discloses a disturbing episode of prison injustice. To start with the petitioner complained