MOHAMMAD GIASUDDIN versus STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

Citation: [1978] 1 S.C.R. 153 · Decided: 06-05-1977 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 6 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

MOHAMMAD GIASUDDIN 
v. 
STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH 
May 6, 1977 
(V. R. KRISHNA IYER AND JASWANT SINGH, JJ.J 
I 53 
Criminal Procedure Code 1973-Sec. 248(2)-The new pre-sentencing pro-
vision-Punishment-Nature and object of-Reformative punishment-Proba-
tion--Parole. 
The appellant along with another accused deceived several desperate un-
employed youngmen, received various sums of Rs. 1200 by false pretences that 
they would secure jobs for them through politically 
influential friends 
and 
A 
B 
other mate-believe representations. The offence of cheating under -s. 420 IPC 
C 
was made out and all the 3 courts concurrently convicted both the accused. The 
appellant was sentenced to 3 years rigorous imprisonment. The appellant is an 
unemployed youngman around 28 years old and used to work as a Junior Assis-
tant in the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat. This Court granted special leave Jimited 
to the question of sentence. 
Allowing the appeal partly, 
HELD : (I) The pre-sentencing prov1510n in s. 248 (2) Cr. P. C. has a 
D 
penological significance of far-reaching import which has been lost on the trial 
magistrate. 
Reform of the black letter law is a time-lagging process. 
At all 
the three tiers the focus was on the serious nature of the crime and no ray of 
light on the criminal or on the pertinent variety of social facts surrounding him 
penetrated the forensic mentation. 
[153 D, E] 
(2) Since the whole territory of punishment in its modern setting is virtuaUy 
virgin so far as our country is concerned, the court went into the subject in 
some incisive depth for the guidance of the subordinate judiciary. [155 G] 
E 
(3) Progressive criminologists in the world agree that the Gandhian diag-
.... _;~ 
nosis of offenders as patients and his conception of, prisons as .hospitals-mental 
and moral-is the key to the pathology of delinquency and the thefapeutic role 
of punishment. The whole man is a healthy man and every man is born good. 
Criminality is a curable deviance. If every saint has a past every sinner has a 
future and it is the role of la\v to remind both of this. 
[155 B-C] 
, 
( 4) Man is subject to more stresses and strains in this age than ever before 
F 
and a new class of crimes arising from restlessness of the spirit and frustration 
of ambitions has erupted. 
White collar crime, as in the present cao;e, belongs 
to this disease of man's inside. 
Barbarity and injury recoils as injury so that 
if healing the mentally or morally maimed 
or malformed man is the goal, 
awakening the inner being more than torturing through exterior compulsions, 
ho1ds out better curative hopes. The infliction of harsh and savage punishment 
i!I thus a relic of past and regressive times. 
Today sentencing should be a pro-
cess of re-shaping a person who has deteriorated into criminality and the modern 
G 
community has a primary stake in the rehabilitation of the offender as a means 
of social defence. 
Therefore, a therapeutic. rather than a terrorem outlook 
should prevail in our criminal courts. [156 E, H, 157 C-D] 
Teiani AIR 1974 S C 228, 236; lagmohan Singh AIR 1973 SC 947 and 
Santa Singh [1976] 4 SCC 190, referred to. 
(~) There is a great discretion vested in the judge while imposing sentence. 
The Judge must exercise this discretionary powe.r, draw his inspiration from 
the humanitarian spirit of the law 1iving down the traditiona1 precedents which · H 
have winked at the personality of the crime doer and been swept away by the 
features of the crime. 
Unfortunately, the Indian Penal Code still lingers in 
the somewhat compartmentalised system of punishment viz., 
imprisonment, 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
154 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(1978] 1 S.C.R. 
simple .or rigorous,. fine and, of cou~e, capital sentence. 
There is a wide range 
?f choice aitd flexible treatment which must b~ available with the Judge if he 
18 to fulfil his tryst with curing the criminal in a hospital setting. 
Rule of 
thumb sentences of rigorous imprisonment 
or other are too insensitive to the 
highly delicate and subtle operation expected of a sentencing judge. 
Release 
on probation, conditional sentences, visits to healing centres, are all on the carda. 
[161 E-H 162 Al 
(6) In the present case the crime is doubly bad and throws light on how 
:ullible youngmen part with hard earned 
money in the hope that political 
influence indirectly purchased through money can secure jobs obliquely. 
But 
the victims of the crime must be commisserated with and i

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