SC warns courts against extreme leniency or harshness in sentencing

The Supreme Court has advised trial courts and high courts to maintain balance while determining punishment, cautioning that either undue leniency or excessive harshness in sentencing could undermine public confidence in the justice system, reported TOI.

A bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih observed, “Undue leniency can cause public confidence in the justice system to plummet, while excessive severity may lead to injustice.” The court made this observation while dismissing a plea seeking a further reduction of an eight-year sentence awarded to a 20-year-old convicted in a case of fatal assault.

According to the report by TOI’s Dhananjay Mahapatra, the youth had attacked and killed a man during an altercation arising from a long-standing dispute involving his sister’s sexual assault. The convict bore a grudge against the family of a man accused of raping his sister, who later gave birth to a child as a result of the assault. The accused had gone with his family to the rapist’s home to discuss a proposal for marriage between the two families, but the talks turned heated.

During the quarrel, the rapist’s brother attempted to calm tensions, but the accused, overcome by anger and resentment, fetched an axe from a nearby house and struck a fatal blow.

Advocate Rahul Kaushik, representing the convict, argued that the incident was not premeditated and requested leniency, noting that the high court had already reduced the trial court’s original 10-year sentence to eight years.

Justice Datta, however, said there was no sufficient “sudden provocation” to justify reducing the conviction from murder to culpable homicide. Since the high court had already exercised discretion to lower the sentence, the Supreme Court declined to interfere further and dismissed the appeal.

(With inputs from TOI)