ASHOK KUMAR Vs. STATE DELHI ADMINISTRATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The common appellant in both these appeals is a teenaged student turned criminal adventurer in the elitist area of car-lifting and scooter-poaching current in our fashionable cities, including Delhi. While he was a college student and but 19 years old, the appellant tried his hand at stealing a scooter way back in 1971. He was arrested but bailed out and while on bail was accused of committing a car theft. Both these cases were tried and he was found guilty. The scooter offence resulted in a sentence of two years' imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 2,000. The car theft case got converted into an offence under Section 411 I.P.C. and, consequently, a reduced sentence of imprisonment for six months and a fine of Rs. 500.

(2.) The convictions being concurrent and no substantial infirmity being present, we have confined leave to appeal to the question of sentence only. But sentencing- the cutting edge of the judicial process- is the crucial strategy of the criminal law in achieving social defence and delinquent rehabilitation. So we have to consider the totality of factors bearing on the offence and the offender and fix a punishment which will promote effectively the punitive objective of the law- deterrence and habilitation.

(3.) We do not deem it necessary to set out elaborately all the socio-legal facts which have been discussed at the bar. All that we need say is that the offence took place in 1971 and we are now in 1980. A long protracted litigation is some deterrent for a young man in his twenties. The accused was nineteen when the offences were committed and his youthful age is a factor which deserves consideration. A long period of incarceration in the present condition of prisons may brutalise the boy and blunt his finer sensibilities so that the endproduct may perhaps be more criminal than the one at the point of entry. Not that all prison terms are not deterrent but some cases prove to be counter productive especially when the delinquent is young.