The Supreme Court on Monday rapped the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s over its decision to award different jail terms to various persons convicted of the same offence and having indistinguishable roles in the crime.

Deciding an appeal arising out of the high court’s decision sentencing eight persons of an unlawful assembly that attacked a person with deadly weapons and killed him, a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Dipankar Dutta said, “The sentencing in this case, to put it mildly, is inexplicable (if not downright bizarre).”

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The top court noted, “On the one hand, Krishan underwent sentence for 9 years 4 months and on the other end of the spectrum, Sunder s/o Rajpal underwent only 11 months. No rationale appears from the reasoning of the High Court for this wide disparity. It is not as though the court took note of the role ascribed to the accused (such a course was not possible, given the nature of the evidence).”

“If it were assumed that the age of the accused played a role, then Krishan, at 61 years – who served 9 years and Brahmajit, who had served in the army, and was detained for over 8 years got the stiffest sentence. On the other hand, younger persons were left relatively unscathed, having served between 3 years and 11 months,” the bench said.

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The trial court had convicted all the accused persons as charged and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for life. The accused moved the high court. However, the high court, through an impugned judgment partly allowed the appeals and converted the convictions under Section 302 read with 149 IPC to Section 304 Part II read with Section 149 IPC. The high court modified the sentence imposed by the trial court to the period of sentence undergone by the accused persons, as the appropriate sentence, Live Law reported.

“The impugned judgment, in this court’s opinion, fell into error in not considering the gravity of the offence,” it said.

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“Having held all the accused criminally liable, under Section 304 Part II read with Section 149 IPC and also not having found any distinguishing feature in the form of separate roles played by each of them, the imposition of the “sentence undergone” criteria, amounted to an aberration, and the sentencing is for that reason, flawed. This court is, therefore, of the view that given the totality of circumstances (which includes the fact that the accused have been at large for the past four years), the appropriate sentence would be five years rigorous imprisonment,” it said.

“However, at the same time, the court is cognizant of the fact that Krishan and Bramhajit served more than that period. Therefore, the impugned judgment, as far as they are concerned, is left undisturbed. Consequently, the sentence of Raju, Parveen, Sunder s/o Amit Lal, Sandeep, Nar Singh, and Sunder s/o Rajpal is hereby modified; they are hereby sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for five years,” it said, ordering them to surrender within six weeks from today and serve the rest of their sentences.

(With Live Law inputs)