SURINDER SINGH @ NITU Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Present is a case where the judicial lapse has come to the notice of this Court, which has been committed by Shri K.S. Grewal, Session, Judge, Bathinda,who while disposing of three criminal appeals, unnecessarily and for the reasons best known to him, reduced the substantive sentence of Pritpal Singh accused from two years to one year under Sec. 326, Indian Penal Code, little realising that the injured in the said case had lost his left eye on account of the commission of the offence committed by Pritpal Singh and other co-accused. While reducing the sentence the Sessions Judge has given the following reasons in para No. 14 of the judgment, which reads as follows:-

(2.) The above reasons given by the learned Sessions Judge, Bathinda, in my opinion, are far-fetched and cannot be accepted from any judicial canon. Rather the reasons. So my mud, are sticky, for which the conduct of (he Judicial Officer cannot go unnoticed It is a cardinal principal of law and criminal penology that once the offence against the accused is prosed beyond reasonable doubt, it also becomes a sacred and fundamental duty of the Criminal Courts to award adequate sentence to the offender, so that the faith of the public at large in the judicial system may not be lost.

(3.) In the present case the F.I.R. was lodged on 31st March, 1991 in Police Station Kotwali, Bathmda. under Sections 326/324/323/34, Mini Penal Code. Some of the accused remained as absconders and the trial could only be started against three persons and even the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Batbinda, while awarding the sentence on 22nd Aug., 1994 visited die accused with leniency, but the order of the learned Sessions Judge. Bathinda, in my opinion, cannot be swallow ed or digested as it is Rather the conduct of the learned Sessions Judge requires strict gaze and the action is left to die Honourable Inspecting Judge of the Bathinda Sessions Division, to whom the copy of this order along with a copy of the order passed by the learned Session Judge, be sent by the Registry immediately and not later than the first week of Feb., 1997 as the incoming inspections of the Sessions Divisions are Jikesv to be conducted somewhere in the month of February/March, 1997.