Supreme Court says awarding sentence for an offence has 'social goal'

The Supreme Court today said that the awarding of sentence for an offence has a "social goal" and courts should strike a balance between crime and the penalty imposed on the offender.

"We are of the view that sentencing for any offence has a social goal. In each case, facts and circumstances of that case are always required to be taken into consideration. For the purpose of just and proper punishment, not only the accused must be made to realize that the crime was committed by him but there should be proportionality between the offence committed and the penalty imposed.

"It is obligatory on the part of the Court to keep in mind the impact of offence on the society and its ramifications including the repercussion on the victim," a bench of justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant said.

The observation came in a verdict by which the apex court upheld the Punjab and Haryana High Court's decision convicting a former police official for committing dacoity after trespassing into the house of a businessman in Punjab in 2002.

It dismissed the appeal of Sanjiv Kumar, Assistant Sub-Inspector of Punjab Police against the conviction and award of three years jail term by the High Court in the case.

Earlier, the trial court at Kapurthala had awarded 10 years imprisonment to him for trespassing and committing robbery in the house of Sukhraj Singh of M/s Wadhawan Forex (P) Ltd, a firm allowed by RBI to deal in foreign exchange. The sentence was later reduced to three years by the High Court.