Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- Every litigative appeal has a docket number but beneath the paper lurks a human factor, often forgotten in the forensic pugilistics but now and then brought to the fore, as in this criminal appeal limited to the issue of a appropriate sentence.

2. Surely, the law must keep the promises. Justice Holmes expressed the obvious when he said this, but the breach of promise by the law on delivering criminal justice is daily experience, from police arrest to prison trauma. The focus in this case is on the sentencing alternatives in the Criminal Procedure Code; and the grievance pressed by counsel, when traditional grounds on the merits failed, was that the compassion of S. 380, professionally suffering benign neglect, be kindled and he be released. Enacted law is guilty of inaction, because its obscure presence 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 sentencing legality becomes a casualty. This case is an instance in point.

3. Now the brief story which enlivens the sentencing submissions. Four villagers of rural Punjab, of whom the appellant is one, set upon Arjan Singh, a small official, while on his way back home. The sound and fury of the attack with sticks brought out the ill-starred, innocent Srimati Rakhi, Arjan Singhs brothers wife. Here daughter too came to the spot attracted by the fracas. Arjan Singh received blows, being the angry target of the assailants. But poor Rakhi, who came in accidentally, was hit on the head with a takua by Jagir Singh, one of the accused. She eventually died; and her daughter and Arjan Singh were hurt by the beating.

4. Four persons were charged by the police with offences under Ss. 302, 324 and 323 I. P. C. including constructive liability under S. 34. Two of them were acquitted by the trial court and the other two were convicted but appealed to the High Court. The man who dealt the fatal cut was Jagir Singh. His conviction under S. 302 I. P. C. and award of life imprisonment by the Sessions Court was converted into one under S. 304 Part I, I. P. C. with a consequential reduction of sentence to seven years rigorous imprisonment. His conviction on certain other counts was maintained but we are not concerned with him at all. since the appellant in this Court is the other accused Dilbag Singh. His role was lesser and related to causing simple injury to Arjan Singh, for which he was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year and a fine of Rs. 200. He was held vicariously guilty under Ss. 324/34 I. P. C. and awarded two years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000. In addition he was convicted under S. 323 I. P. C. for causing hurt to the daughter of the deceased and on this count punished with R. I. for one year together with a fine of Rs. 200.

5. Having declined leave on the question of guilt, we confine our attention to the contentions on the sentence. We proceed on the footing of the facts found and ask ourselves whether any basic flaw in sentencing technology affords appellate intervention and re-designing of reformatory treatment in the conspectus of circumstances present in the case.

6. The courts in our country consult the punitive tariffs prescribed in the Penal Code, consult the prison period awarded in practice for such offences and with marginal variations mechanise the process. Judged by that test, conviction under S. 324 I. P. C. read with S. 34 plus substantive guilt under S. 323 I. P. C. is visited with two years for the former and one year R. I. especially when the incident has ended in death. But penal humanitarianism, strategies of non-institutional rehabilitation and a complex of other considerations in making an offender a non-offender have a revolutionized the judicial repertory in re-socializing the criminal. The sentence hearing for which the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 provides in S. 248 (2) and S. 235 (2) has hardly received the serious concern of th