ASHOKE PARAMANICK Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MEN are not hanged for stealing horses but that horses may not be stolen" Glanville Williams in his famous "Treatise Textbook of Criminal Law" so quoted George Savile. Marquis of Halifax to amplify the utilitarian reason for punishment either to have effect upon the offender (particular deterrent) or by serving as a warning to other prospective wrong doers so that they may not choose the path of crime (general deterrent). Today this Mid -Victorian concept of sentencing has undergone a drastic overhaul in the workshop of moderm penalogists. From the earlier eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth paradigm the emphasis on the sentencing system is individualization which is 'aimed at fitting the offender rather than the offence. This concept has been developed in England in the earlier Century by Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham sought to achieve some sort of rationality in the Penal System by laying down guidelines for gradation of offence in terms of punishment. Jeremy Bentham in his classic work "The Rationale of Punishment":

(2.) THE Benthamite School of Thought greatly influenced the English Sentencing System where the sentencing process was grossly disproportionate in the 18th Century England. Death penalty was prescribed for murder and also for pick -pocketing and for horse theft to high reason.

(3.) IF the 18th and 19th Centuries was an era of deterrence in the focal point of the penal system, then the end of the 19th Century and the dawn of the 20th Century the reformative aspect of punishment and correctional approach was the signature tune in the New Era.