Beni Mahto vs State Of Jharkhand

Deepak Roshan, J

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

This criminal revision application is directed against the judgment dated 24.02.2004 passed by learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No.5, Dhanbad in Criminal Appeal No.114 of 2001 whereby the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 6.08.2002 passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate, 1st Class at Dhanbad in G.R. Case No.1045/98; whereby the petitioner was convicted and sentenced to undergo Three months S.I for offence under Section 279 IPC, Three months S.I for offence under Section 337 IPC and One and half years S.I. for the offence under Section 304 A IPC and ordered that the sentences shall run concurrently; has been modified by reducing the sentence to one year from one and half (1 ½ ) years under Section 304A IPC.

The prosecution case in short is that on 21.3.98 in the morning while the informant Mangar Mahto was cleaning his hand and legs in front of his residence he saw that the petitioner was proceeding through Topchanchi-Gomoh road and he was driving a trekker bearing registration No.BR-17P-9749 rashly and negligently and the said trekker dashed his Bhabhi-Jhania Devi and her daughter-Kunti Kumari aged about 4 years and fled away. Consequently his Bhabhi and niece received serious injury. Thereafter with the help of local people injured persons were brought to the hospital but unfortunately on the mid way victim Jhania Devi died due to her injuries.

At the outset, Ms. J. K. Mazumdar, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is not a habitual offender however unfortunately the said accident was happened. The petitioner has also undergone 38 days imprisonment and now the petitioner is aged about 51 years. As such, she is confining her prayer only on the question of sentence and since the petitioner is now middle aged person; sending him back to jail at this stage even for short period will hamper the entire family as well as his career; as such the sentence may be modified in lieu of fine.

Learned counsel for the State supported the judgments and submits that there is no error in the finding given by the courts below. As such, the conviction cannot be set aside, however the sentence may be modified in lieu of fine.

After going through the impugned judgment including the lower court records and keeping in mind the limited submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioner and also the scope of revision jurisdiction, I am not inclined to interfere with the finding of the courts below and as such the judgment of conviction passed by the learned trial court is, hereby, sustained.

However, so far as sentence is concerned, it is apparent from record that the incident is of the year 1998 and 23 years have elapsed and the petitioner must have suffered the rigors of litigation for the last 23 years. It is not stated that the petitioner has ever misused the privilege of bail. Further, the incident does not reflect any cruelty on the part of the petitioner or any mental depravity and the petitioner also remained in custody for 38 days.

In a situation of this nature, I am of the opinion that no fruitful purpose would be served by sending the petitioner/convict back to prison; rather interest of justice would be sufficed if the sentence is modified in lieu of fine.

Thus, the sentence passed by the trial court and upheld by the appellate court is, hereby, modified to the extent that the petitioner is sentenced to undergo for the period already undergone, subject to the payment of fine of Rs. 5000/-.

It is made clear that petitioner shall pay the aforesaid fine within a period of 4 months from today before the court below, Dhanbad, failing which shall serve rest of the sentence as ordered by the learned Trial Court.

With the aforesaid observations, directions and modification in sentence only, the instant criminal revision application is disposed of.

The petitioner shall be discharged from the liability of his bail bonds, subject to fulfillment of aforesaid condition.

Let a copy of this order be communicated to the court below and also to the petitioner through the officer-in-charge of concerned police station.

Let the lower court record be sent to the court concerned forthwith.