Uttaranchal High Court: R.C. Khulbe, J., partly allowed an appeal that was filed aggrieved by the Judgment and order passed by Addl. Sessions Judge whereby he had convicted the appellant-Resham Singh under Section 224, Penal Code, 1860 and sentenced him to undergo two years’ R.I. with a fine of Rs 5,000. Appellant Beero Bai was convicted under Section 147, 332/149 and 225/149, Penal Code and she was sentenced to undergo one year’s R.I. in each of these three offences, with a fine of Rs 1,000 under each offence.
Written information was given by S.I., M.C. Srivastava on 01-12-1997 at P.S. Ramnagar. Accordingly, Chick FIR Ex.Ka-9 was lodged at 06:50 A.M. After investigation, Charge-sheet Ex.Ka-15 was submitted against the accused, and accordingly, the cognizance was taken.
The Court while partly allowing the petition stated that the testimony of the witnesses was trustworthy and they had been subjected to lengthy cross-examination but nothing had come out in their evidence which may create any reasonable doubt in their testimony and thus the Trial Court has rightly held that the prosecution has successfully proved the charges against the appellant-Beero Bai beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court relying on the decision of Commandant, 20th Battalion, ITB Police v. Sanjay Binjola, 2001 SCC (Cri) 897 quoted that
“Probation of Offenders Act has been enacted in view of the increasing emphasis on the reformation and rehabilitation of the offenders as useful and self-reliant members of society without subjecting them to the deleterious effect of jail life. The Act empowers the Court to release on probation, in all suitable cases, an offender found guilty of having committed an offence not punishable with death or imprisonment for life or for the description mentioned in Sections 3 and 4 of the said Act.”
The Court further stated that the appellant was the first-time offender and the incident seemed to have taken place 23 years ago thus considering the provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, no useful purpose would be served to send the appellant to jail to serve out the remaining sentence instead she should be released on probation in order to reform herself.[Resham Singh v. State of Uttarakhand, 2020 SCC OnLine Utt 504, 27-08-2020]
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