PHUL SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A philanderer of 22, appellant Phul Singh, overpowered by sex stress in excess, hoisted himself into his cousin's house next door, and in broad day-light, over-powered the temptingly lonely prosecutrix of twenty-four, Pushpa, raped her in hurried heat and made an urgent exist having fulfilled his erotic sorti. The screaming victim complained to her mother working in the field; thereafter a first information, prosecution and conviction ensued, a sentence of 4 years' R.I. was imposed by the Sessions Court, and the High Court affirmed it in appeal. The broad facts bearing on the instant act of carnal assault look too probable for pettifogging legalistics about poor corroboration, consent and false implication to devalue their credibility. The culpability is beyond doubt and we uphold the conviction.

(2.) Ordinarily, rape is violation, with violence, of the private person of a woman - an outrage by all canons. In our conditions of escalating sex brutality a 4 - years term for rape is not excessive. But here the offender is in his early twenties and signs of repentance are seen. The victim and her parents have forgiven the molester who is a first cousin, says counsel. An affidavit from the father-in-law of the woman has been filed and, if needed counsel is ready to produce the victim's statement that she has forgiven the criminal. While it is possible that the accused may procure such condonation from an unwilling victim, the fact remains that the two families being close cousins are ready to take a lenient view of the situation. Of course, this does not bind the Court in any manner. Therefore, taking an overall view of the familiar and the criminal factors invoked, we reduce the imprisonment from 4 years to 2 years' R.I.

(3.) We must, however, direct our attention in a different penological direction. For, sentencing efficacy in cases of lust-loaded criminality cannot be simplistically assumed by award of long incarceration, for, often that remedy aggravates the malady. Punitive therapeutics must be more enlightened than the blind strategy of prison severity where all that happens is sex starvation, brutalisation, criminal companiship, versatile vices through bio-environmental pollution, dehumanised cell drill under 'zoological' conditions and emergence, at the time of release, of an embittered enemy of society and its values with an indelible stigma as convict stamped on him - a potentially good person 'successfully' processed into a hardened delinquent, thanks to the penal illiteracy of the Prison System. The Court must restore the man.