PARTY IN BORSTAL SCHOOL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these petitions the question that arises for consideration is important not only in respect of these cases but also from a long range point of view. What should be the court's approach in the case of juvenile delinquency and in what manner the juvenile offenders be treated.

(2.) CIVILISED nations have gone far from the days when it was considered that the correction for any maladjustment in society is by recourse to satisfaction of society's thirst for vengeance. Bentham said: "the pleasure of vengeance calls to my mind sermon's riddle. It is sweet coming out of terrible, it is the honey dropping from the lion's mouth. " Gradually deterrence displaced retribution. Punishment was for the purpose of preventing the criminal from committing further as well as for deterring other members of the society from committing the same crime by showing what would be in store for them. Then there was the expiatory theory by which the guilty was to go through penance for purging him of his guilt. Now the emphasis is on reformation as it is thought that in most cases, a criminal is a victim of circumstances and situations.

(3.) SENDING a juvenile to jail without looking into all these aspects, it is likely that he becomes a hardened criminal and this will be totally against the present policy of penology which is to reform the criminals than to punish them as pointed out by Fazal Ali, J. in Sitaram v. State of Maharashtra (A. I. R 1979 S C. 1569 at 1572 ).