Undue leniency in sentencing, disapproved

Supreme Court: The Court has laid down the following sentencing guidelines, “It is the duty of the Court awarding sentence to ensure justice to both the parties and therefore undue leniency in awarding sentence needs to be avoided because it does not have the necessary effect of being a deterrent for the accused and does not re-assure the society that the offender has been properly dealt with. It is not a very healthy situation to leave the injured and complainant side thoroughly dissatisfied with a very lenient punishment to the accused. In the present case the order of punishment imposed by the High Court suffers from the vice of being over-lenient even in absence of any mitigating circumstance.” [State of M.P. v. Udaibhan, 2016 SCC OnLine SC 209, decided on March 1, 2016]