SC: Compensation is not a substitute for punishment

NEW DELHI: Sending a clear message to high courts and trial courts that a person convicted of a crime could not be let off with lenient punishment on agreeing to financially compensate the victim, Supreme Court on Tuesday said that such compensation could not be considered equivalent to or a substitute for punishment.

A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi said that undue sympathy for the accused while imposing an inadequate sentence would do harm to society and erode public trust in the justice system. It expressed concern over the "misplaced understanding" of various high courts in treating compensation as a substitute for a sentence.

"Compensation payable to the victim is only restitutory in nature, and it cannot be considered as equivalent to or a substitute for punishment. Punishment is punitive in nature, and its object is to create an adequate deterrence against the said crime and to send a social message to the miscreants that any violation of the moral norms of society would come with consequences, which cannot merely be purchased by money," Justice Bishnoi, who penned the judgment, said.

The bench quashed a Madras high court order that had reduced a three-year jail term in an attempt to murder case to the sentence undergone by them (two months), after the two persons convicted agreed to pay Rs 50,000 each to the victim. It said the HC had acted in defiance of the law and made a travesty of established criminal jurisprudence in arriving at its conclusion.

"The consideration to be kept in mind while awarding punishment is to ensure that the punishment should not be too harsh, but at the same time, it should also not be too lenient so as to undermine its deterrent effect... The objective of punishment is not to seek vengeance for the crime; rather, it is an attempt to reconstruct the damaged social fabric of society in order to pull back its wheel on the track," the bench said.

SC said the provision of compensation had its roots in victimology, which acknowledged victims as the "primary sufferers of the crime" and advocated the idea of providing some relief from suffering.

"The rationale behind victim compensation is to rehabilitate the victim for the loss and injury caused to them as a direct consequence of the crime or offence and not to exonerate the offender/accused from their culpability. The practice of enhancing the compensation payable to the victim and reducing the sentence, especially in cases of grave offence, is dangerous as it might send a wrong message to society that offenders/accused persons can absolve themselves from their liability by merely paying a monetary consideration," it said.

"The misplaced understanding of various courts in treating compensation as a substitute for sentence is both a matter of concern and a practice which should be condemned," SC said, adding that it had observed a "trend" in HCs to reduce the sentences awarded by trial courts " capriciously and mechanically, without any visible application of judicial mind".

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