JOY Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE revision petitioner was convicted by the Special court of the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Ernakulam for having committed the offences under S. 468, 471, 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. THE appeal filed against the conviction and sentence was dismissed by the Sessions Court.

(2.) ACCUSED Joy son of Francis has studied only upto s. S. L. C. He appeared for the S. S L. C. Examination several tiroes, but be could not register a pass in the Examination. However, he pretended that he passed the S. S. L C. Examination and had been undergoing Pre-Degree course in the Mar Evanios College , Trivandrum. Despite his poor academic performance, the accused was very much desirous of getting admission to M. B. B. S. course. In answer to the invitation of application for admission to M. B. B. S. course in 1981 the accused submitted duly filled up form. In the application form be bad stated that he bad passed pre-Degree Examination and secured 441 marks out of 450 He also showed in the application form that he sat for the Pre-Degree Examination and his register number was 35671. In fact one Sekhar was the true candidate who appeared for the Pre-Degree Examination with register No. 35671 for the examination held in 1981 April. The authorities who selected the candidates for M. B. B. S. course included the name of the accused in the provisional list. However, before the finalisation of the list the forgery of the accused came out. Several other instances of forgery of mark list and other allied offences came to light and a special court was constituted for trial of these cases.

(3.) THE object of S. 6 of the Act broadly speaking, is to see that young offenders are not sent to jail for the commission of less serious offences. If they are directed for custodial sentence they are likely to have close association with hardened and habitual criminals and this would clearly do more harm than good and for that reason it would be prejudicial to the larger interest of society. A plain reading of S. 6 would indicate that if the offender is under 21 years of age and be is found guilty of having committed an offence punishable with imprisonment other than imprisonment for life, the court shall not sentence him to imprisonment straight away. THE court must consider the circumstance of the case, the nature of the offence and the character of the offender and decide whether it would be expedient to deal with him under S. 3 or 4 of the Act. If the court decides to pass any sentence of imprisonment on the offender, it should record reasons for adopting such a course. THEre are ever so many decisions discussing the various aspects of the applicability of the Probation of Offenders Act. Dault Ram v. State of haryana (1973 SCC. (Cri) 41), Ishar Das v. State of Punjab (1973 SCC. (Cri.)708), Satyabhan Kishore v. State of Bihar (1972 (1) SCWR. 630), Rattanlal v. State of Punjab (AIR. 1965 SC 444) and Arvind Mohan Singh v. Amulya Kumar biswas (1974 S7c. (Cri.) 391) are some of them. In Masarullah v. State of Tamil nadu (1993 SCC (Crl.) 84) the Supreme Court observed as follows: "in case of an offender under the age of 21 years on the date of commission of the offence, the court is expected ordinarily to give benefit of S. 6 of the Act. While deciding whether the offender should be granted the benefit, it is necessary for the court to keep in view three relevant aspects viz. , nature of the offence, character of the offender and the attendant and surrounding circumstances as revealed in the report of the probation Officer. Having regard to these considerations as also in conformity with the modern trend of reclamation of offender rather than condemnation, the present case appears to be preeminently fit case for grant of the benefit under s. 6. " THE above case was in respect of an offence under S. 397 and 452. THE Supreme Court on several other instances also invoked the provision of Probation of Offenders Act.