SONA RAUT Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been admitted upon the ground of sentence only. The petitioner, Sona Raut, has been convicted under Section 307, Indian Penal Code, for committing a murderous assault by night upon his own brother. The trial Court sentenced him to undergo four years rigorous imprisonment. The learned Sessions Judge, upon appeal, reduced the sentence to one of three years. We are now asked to reduce the sentence still further, chiefly upon the ground that the injured man, Hardeo Raut, has filed a petition stating that ho has made up his quarrel with his brother, and both are now living in amity, and he himself is anxious that the sentence should be reduced to such an extent as we may consider consistent with the ends of justice.

(2.) It appears that, the petitioner had some quarrel with his brother over the family property. He attacked his brother at dead of night with some sharp weapon. There is no definite evidence as to what the weapon was, but the injuries suggest that it was probably a small axe or garasha. Both the injuries were on the back; one was simple, the other was grievous, being, according to the doctor, an incised penetrating wound 3" ? ? 1" deep running across the seventh dorsal vertebra. According to the doctor the injured man was, for some time, in a precarious condition, and the injury was of such a nature that it might have caused death in the ordinary course of human nature.

(3.) The Crown opposes the application, but not strongly. The offence committed by the petitioner was undoubtedly a very serious one. Having regard, however, to the fact that the injured man himself is now on friendly terms with his assailant and desires a reduction of the sentence, we are of opinion that it will be consistent with the ends of justice to reduce the sentence to rigorous imprisonment for the period of one year. To keep the petitioner in jail for a long period would, in the circumstances, only be likely to end in a renewal of the feud after his emergence from prison.