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 s