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 concern