Charan Singh vs State of Punjab

Nawab Singh, J.—This revision is directed against the judgment dated March 30th, 2005 whereby Additional Sessions Judge, (Ad-hoc),

Fast Track Court-II, Hoshiarpur upheld the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated June 12th, 2001 of Judicial Magistrate First

Class, Hoshiarpur vide which the petitioner was convicted u/s 420 IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 2 years

and to pay fine of Rs. 1000/- with default stipulation. At the outset, learned counsel for the petitioner has stated that he does not challenge the

judgment of conviction on merits and confines his arguments only regarding quantum of sentence. He further submitted that the petitioner is in his

70s. He has already undergone actual sentence of about 3 months and 2 days and has faced the agony of protracted criminal proceedings

spreading over a period of 15 years. He is a retired Navy official. The cheating committed by him was to the effect that in order to send the son of

the complainant abroad, he had taken an amount of Rs. 15, 000/-from him. The complainant and his family has shifted to Canada. He is the first

offender. He has seven children. Out of them five are married and two are unmarried. Two children are polio affected.

The grounds taken justify the request made so, this Court upholds the conviction of the petitioner but is inclined to reduce the sentence. It is

further of the opinion that ends of justice shall be met if the petitioner is sentenced to the period already undergone by him and orders accordingly.

The revision is accepted partly as indicated above.