IMPORTANT POINT
Sentence – Only because accused is on bail for a long time, it is no ground by itself to show leniency – It is only one of several factors to be considered.

JUDGMENT :

ABHAY S. OKA, J.

FACTUAL ASPECTS

1. The appellant has been convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 333, 353 and 451 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short ‘IPC’). The Sessions Court convicted the appellant for all three offences. For the offences punishable under Sections 451 and 353 of the IPC, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year each and for the offence punishable under Section 333 of IPC, he was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two years with a fine of Rs. 2,000/-. By the impugned judgment, the High Court while upholding the conviction, brought down the substantive sentence to rigorous imprisonment for six months for each of the three offences. On 9th May 2023, this Court issued a notice confined only to the sentencing part.

SUBMISSIONS

2. The learned counsel appearing for the appellant firstly submitted that considering the facts of the case, the appellant deserves to be granted the benefit of probation under Section 360 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short ‘Cr.P.C.’) and/or the Probation of the Offenders Act, 1958. Secondly, he submitted that the incident complained occurred on 1st December 1992 and during the period of the last thirty and a half years, during the pendency of the trial and appeal, the appellant was all throughout on bail. The learned counsel submitted that the appellant is a woman whose present age is 62 years. He submitted that considering the long passage of time of thirty years and more from the date of the offence and other relevant factors, even if the benefit of probation cannot be given to the appellant, she deserves to be let off only on payment of a fine.

3. Mr. D.S. Parmar, the learned Additional Advocate General appearing for the respondent-State of M.P. submitted that the appellant has misbehaved with PW-1 who is a public servant and obstructed her and PW-6 from discharging their official duties and therefore, in fact, stringent punishment was called for. Moreover, the High Court has already shown leniency by reducing the sentence.

OUR VIEW

4. It is necessary for us to note the nature of the offence. The appellant claims to be a social worker belonging to a political party. A written complaint was made by Ms Sajni Batra (PW-1) on 1st December 1992 to the Police. She was working as a Deputy Director in the Directorate of Women and Child Development at Bhopal. At that time, Shri P. Raghvan (PW-6) was posted as the Commissioner in the Directorate. On 1st December 1992, PW-6 was conducting an official meeting in his chamber in the presence of PW-1 and other officers. The case of the prosecution is that when the meeting was in progress, suddenly, the appellant barged into the chamber of PW-6. She threw a file at PW-6 and started shouting in abusive language. When PW-1 tried to stop her, the appellant pushed her. As a result, the PW-1 sustained a fracture in the little right finger. The appellant claimed that she was the sister of a Member of Parliament and threatened to remove PW-6 from his post. The Sessions Court and the High Court believed the testimonies of the eyewitnesses and especially of PW-1 and PW-6. Considering the nature of the offence, we are of the considered view that the benefit of probation can be extended to the appellant.

5. As noted in our order dated 9th May 2023, no case was made out to interfere with the order of conviction and the notice was confined to sentence. Therefore, the question is about the quantum of sentence. Looking at the findings recorded by the Sessions Court and the High Court, the following are the relevant factors for deciding the question of showing leniency to the appellant:

(a) For espousing the cause of the labourers, the appellant visited the office of the Directorate.

(b) Evidence of PW-1 and PW-2 Hemraj (a peon working in the Office of the Commissioner) indicated that the appellant had sent a slip of her name to PW-6 which was kept on the table of PW-6 as she wa