PHUL SINGH versus STATE OF HARYANA

Citation: [1980] 1 S.C.R. 589 · Decided: 10-09-1979 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER · Disposal: Case Partly allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

~" 
·.~ .,, 
PHUL SINGH 
v. 
STATE OF HARYANA 
September 10, 1979 
[V. R. KRISHNA IYER AND P. N. SHINGHAL, JJ.] 
Crin1inal Procedure Code-Sentence-When can be reduced. 
589 
The appellant who was· 22 committed rape on the wife of his cousin who 
was a next door neighbour in broad-day-light. 
The Sessions Judge ·found the 
appellant guilty of the offence of rape and sentenced him to four years R.I. 
On appeal, the High Court affirmed it.· It was urged that the appellant was 
in his early twenties and that there were signs of repentance. The fact remains 
that the two families being close cousins are ready to take a lenient view 
of the situation which of course does not bind the court in any manner. Partly 
accepting the appeal, the Court 
1-IELD : The appellant is not a 'habitual' and has no vicious antecedents 
ex.;ept this fugitive, randy molestation which is bad enough in a society where 
women are often socially ¥.'eak and sexually victimised. 
It may be marginally 
extenuatory to mention that mcxlern Indian conditions are drifting into societal 
permissiveness on the carnal front promoting proneness to pornos in life, what 
\Vith libidinous 'brahmacharis', womanising public men, lascivious dating and 
mating by unwed students, sex explosion in celluloid and book stalls and .cor-
rupt morals teaching a new 'high' in high places. [591 F-H] 
A 
B 
c 
D 
The appellant is a youth barely 22 with no criminal antecedents save this 
E 
offence. 
He has a young wife and a farm to look after. 
Given correctional 
courses 1hrough meditational therapy and other measures, his erotic aberration 
may \Vither away. 
A man like the appellant has a reasonable prospect of 
shaping jnto a balanced person, given propitious social environs, curative and 
congenial work and techniques of internal stress release or of reformatory 
self expression. 
In this background the court regarded a four year term of 
rigorous in1prisonment more hardening than habilitative, even though the court 
F 
deplored the sex violance the young appellant had inflicted on his cousin's wife 
snatching a tricky opportunity. [592 B-D] 
A hyper sexed homo sapiens cannot be habilitated by humiliating or harsh 
treatment. 
In prison treatment must, therefore, be geared to psychic healing, 
re1ease of stresses, restoration of self-respect :ind cultural normalisation, apart 
from training to adapt oneself to the life outside. 
The functional failure of 
our pachydermic prison projects, exacerbated by its tension and trauma on the 
one hand and the reverse ethos inside on the other, deserves judicial cog-
nisance. [591 A, D-E] 
The current efforts of Governments, Central and Staie, to reform' jail regimen, 
it was hoped, will give a better deal to the caged community. For these reasons, 
in this case, it is desirable to superadd to the sentence of imprisonment a few 
directives to ensure that the carceral period reforms the convict. 
A set of 
positive prescriptions will ensure appellant turning a new leaf. 
One major 
m•::thod in securing thi! goal is to keep alive the family ties of the person in 
\ 
G 
H 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
590 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(1980] 1 S.C.R. 
prison so that the appellant may not deteriorate into a non-person. Within the 
limits of the Prison Act and Rules thereunder, the State Government 0r the 
Inspector General of Prisons will ensure that on parole, furlough or orders, the 
young appellant turns a new leaf of normal life. [591 E-F, 592 Fl 
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal Appeal No. 5(}5 
of 1979. 
Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order_ dated 
3-5-79 of the Punjab.& Haryana High Court in Cr!. A. No. 166/76. 
Harbans Singh Marwah for the Appellant. 
R. N. Sachthey for the Respondent. 
The Jndgment of the Court was delivered by 
KRISHNA IYER, J. A philanderer of 22, appellant Phul Singh, over-
powered by sex stress in excess, hoisted himself into his cousin's house 
next door, and in broad day-light, overpowered the temptingly lonely 
prosecutrix of twenty four, Pushpa, raped her in hurned heat and 
made an urgent exist having fulfilled ms erotic soctie. The screaming 
victim complained to her mother working in the field; thereafter a 
first information, prosecntion and conviction ensued, a sentence of 4 
years R.I. was imposed by the Sessions Court, and the High Court 
affirmed it in appeal. 
The broad facts bearing on the instant act of 
carnal assault look too probable for pettifogging legalistics about poor 
c

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