Giving punishment to wrongdoer heart of the criminal delivery system: SC

The court said the acts of the appellant were unpardonable and a compromise deed cannot be sole basis of changing the sentence

The Supreme Court on Monday said a compromise deed entered between the victim and the convict cannot be the solitary basis to mould a sentence, which has to be decided in facts and circumstances of each case, as giving punishment to the wrongdoer is the heart of the criminal delivery system.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay S Oka dismissed an appeal filed by Bhagwan Narayan Gaikwad against the Bombay High Court's order awarding five years jail to him and Rs 2 lakh compensation to the victim whose leg and hand were chopped off by him along with others.

The court said the acts of the appellant were unpardonable as he made the victim permanently disabled.

Gaikwad, led by senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, submitted that he is now 65 years old and had attacked the victim 28 years ago due to misunderstanding and at the spur of the moment. The relationship between them has become cordial and all grudges have vanished due to a huge time gap.

The petitioner also submitted to make him suffer a substantive sentence of five-year jail would be unjustified. The victim's counsel also asked the court to compound the offence and release the convict by reducing his sentence to the five months of jail already undergone by him.

The bench, however, said it cannot record its satisfaction to the compromise affidavit filed on July 13, 2021 since the victim has suffered for such a long time.

He was crippled for life as his leg and arm were amputated in the incident on December 13, 1993.

"Since then he has been fighting for life and is pursuing his daily chores with a prosthetic arm and leg and has lost vital organs of his body," the bench said.

The bench also said the compromise if entered at the later stage of the incident or even after conviction can indeed be one of the factors interfering with the sentence to avoid bitterness in the families of the accused and the victim.

"But the compromise cannot be taken to be a solitary basis until the other aggravating and mitigating factors also support and are favourable to the accused for moulding the sentence which always has to be examined in the facts and circumstances of the case on hand," the bench added.

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