Mulla & Another v. State of U.P. - Sentencing Policy in India

THE INDIAN LAW INSTITUTE
LL.M. (Two Year Course)
Wednesday Seminar IX
(10.03.10)
10:00 am-12:15 pm

Mulla & Another v. State of U.P.

Moderator : Samreen Hussain
Presenter : Utkarsh Yadav
Discussants : Sreeparvathy G. and Vikesh Tripathi
Rapporteur : Neeraj Tiwari


I Facts

ON 21.12.1995, when Shiv Ratan, Nanhakey, Ram Kishore and Sushil were irrigating their fields, eight miscreants armed with guns reached the spot and made a demand of Rs. 10000/- each, threatening that otherwise they would be killed. Soon thereafter, Harnam, Ganga Dai, Chhotakey and Hari Kumar Tripathi who were returning home after irrigating their fields were also stopped by the miscreants making the same demands. When all of them expressed their inability to pay the money, the miscreants took away five of them including a woman leaving the others to arrange for the money, threatening that the abducted persons would be killed otherwise. A complaint was lodged and the dead bodies were recovered the next day. The appellants were arrested and charge sheet was filed. The trial court convicted the appellants under section 365 IPC and sentenced them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 7 years and a fine of Rs.10000/- each. They were also convicted under section 148 IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 3 years. They were further convicted under section 302 read with section 149 IPC and sentenced to death. The appeal against the judgment of the trial court was dismissed by the high court confirming the death sentence. Aggrieved by the order of the high court, both the accused preferred an appeal before the Supreme Court.

II Judgment

The Supreme Court on appeal confirmed the conviction. However, Sathasivam, J. writing the judgment for the bench , observed that, “We at no stage suggest that economic depravity justify moral depravity, but we certainly recognize that in the real world, such factors may lead a person to crime… Therefore, we believe, socio-economic factors might not dilute guilt, but they may amount to mitigating circumstances. Socioeconomic factors lead us to another related mitigating factor, i.e. the ability of the guilty to reform. It may not be misplaced to note that a criminal who commits crimes due to his economic backwardness is most likely to reform. .” Thus the court taking in to account all the aggravating and mitigating circumstances commuted the death sentence in to life imprisonment.


III Issues

1. Is there a need for codification of sentencing policy (based upon the penal policy of the state) which keeps the judicial discretion to bare minimum, in order to avoid arbitrariness and inconsistency?
2. Keeping in mind the conflicting opinions of the Supreme Court, can economic backwardness of the accused be considered as one of the mitigating factors in sentencing?
3. In the context of this case do you think that the Supreme Court is gradually doing away with death penalty by limiting the scope of ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine?


Suggested Readings:

1. G.Kameswari & V. Nageswara Rao, “The Sentencing Process-Problems and Perspectives”, 41 JILI (1999) 452.
2. V.R Dinkar, “Structuring Judicial Discretion in Sentencing by Guideline Judgement”, 26 Academy Law Review (2002) 135.
3. Dr. K.N Chandrasekharan Pillai and Dr. N.S Soman, “Rarest of Rare Case-A Myth”, 25 Academy Law Review(2001) 157.
4. State of Rajasthan v. Madan Singh, AIR 2008 SC 1292.
5. Santosh Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra, ( 2009) 6 SCC 498.