STATE OF HYDERABAD Vs. KANEEZ FATEMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this revision petition Government seek enhancement of the fine imposed on the Respondent for contravening the provisions of the Influx from Pakistan Control Act. The Respondent is a woman who obtained a permit to Hyderabad to visit her parents but finding that her parents were not in Hyderabad City and that they were living in Gulbarga, she went directly to Gulbarga (in the Hyderabad State). Technically it is an offence. The permit could be utilized only for the destination for which it was obtained and if she intended to go to Gulbarga she should have got down at Hyderabad and obtained a fresh permit to proceed to Gulbarga or she could have got her permit amended. She did not do so. In the circumstances she was rightly convicted.

(2.) AS regards the sentence the trial Magistrate fined her Rs. 500/ - which, in appeal, was reduced to Rs. 100/ -. The Respondent is a woman and is evidently not having any independent source of livelihood or income. Her Advocate also pleads that she was not conversant with the provisions of law. I understand that she requested the authorities for permission to permanently stay with her parents since her husband abandoned her in Pakistan. The Government Advocate is not able to say anything about it either way since there is nothing on record to support the statement. The advocate for the Respondent, Mr. Azizullah, however, states that he has personal knowledge that the Respondent is in Gulbarga and that the permit obtained from Pakistan has already expired. There is, therefore, nothing to suggest that the Respondent is a dangerous or undesirable person. Otherwise she would not have been allowed to stay in India longer than the period the permit has permitted. In the circumstances, I consider the fine of Rs. 100/ - adequate. Any enhancement of fine would really be punishing her supporters or relatives. Where a fine is imposed on an accused person, it should be such as is commensurate with the offence, the character and conduct of the accused, the circumstances leading to the commission of the offence, the degree of mens rea, as well as with the financial circumstance's of the accused. To impose a fine which the accused has no means to pay, really means that the accused is being sentenced under the cloak of fine, to undergo imprisonment or subject himself to further legal process. The fine in no event should be either excessive or such as to make an accused feel, however wrongly, that he is being persecuted instead of being prosecuted. In the result the revision petition is dismissed.