JUDGMENT

DESAI, J. :—While we decline to grant special leave in this case, an unsavoury feature of the judgment which rather stares into our face, and surface at regular intervals, makes it obligatory to make a few observations.

2. Petitioner was convicted for having committed offences under Section 161 of the I.P.C. and Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and was sentenced to suffer R. I. for one year on each count and on the second count, also to pay a fine of Rs. 400/- or in default to suffer further R. I. for three months by the learned Special Judge. Both the substantive sentences of imprisonment were directed to run concurrently.

3. Petitioner preferred Criminal Appeal No. 989 of 1977, against his conviction and sentence to the High Court of Punjab and Harayana at Chandigarh.

4. This appeal came up for final hearing before a learned single Judge of the High Court on 31st October 1979. When the appeal was taken up for hearing, learned counsel for the petitioner appearing in the High Court did not question either the correctness or the legality of the conviction. This is unquestionable as the High Court has observed while disposing of the appeal that "no arguments on merits are advanced". The High Court then proceeded to consider adequacy or otherwise of sentence imposed on the appellant before it. The High Court then proceeded to reduce the substantive sentence of the appellant of rigorous imprisonment for one year to the sentence undergone till the date of the judgment of the High Court. While so reducing the substantive sentence the High Court noticed the following circumstances which in the opinion of the High Court were sufficient to enable it to interfere with the sentences imposed upon the present petitioner. It would be advantageous to extract the relevant observations :-

"The learned counsel for the appellant has only submitted that the appellant has already been dismissed from service; that he is a family man, and that his sentence may be reduced to that already undergone. In my view no useful purpose will be served by sending him again to jail to serve his unexpired period of sentence. He has already lost his job. The ends of justice will be amply met if his sentence of imprisonment is reduced to that already undergone and instead sentence of fine is enhanced from Rupees 400/- to Rs. 4000/- (four thousand) or in default to suffer further R. I. for one year. I order accordingly."

5. The judgment of the High Court throws no light on the question as to how much sentence the appellant had undergone by the time the High Court released him on bail while admitting his appeal. But it cannot be more than a few days only.

6. Petitioner as pointed out earlier is convicted for committing offences under Section 161 IPC and Sec. 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act reads as under:-

"Any public servant who commits criminal misconduct shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than one year but which may extend to seven years and shall also be liable to fine:

Provided that the court may, for any special reasons recorded in writing, impose a sentence of imprisonment of less than one year". (underlining ours)

7. The language of the proviso makes it abundantly clear that court is under an obligation to impose a minimum punishment once the conviction is recorded under Section 5 (3) and the minimum punishment of imprisonment is for a term not less than one year. Undoubtedly the proviso confers power on the Court to award less than the minimum punishment, if the Court convicting and sentencing the accused is of the opinion that for any special reasons which the court is under an obligation to record in writing, sentence of imprisonment for a term less than the minimum is called for. Conceding that the quantum of sentence is in the discretion of the trial court, where the Legislature stepped in and circumscribed and fettered the discretion by di