Delhi High Court: In an appeal regarding a rape case, a Single Judge Bench of the Court comprising S.P. Garg, J. held that there was no need to give undue sympathise to convicts guilty of grave crimes after taking into consideration the scheme of incidents.
The trial court had found the appellant guilty for rape and attempted murder. The convict had accepted the charges in the appeal but had challenged for a reduced sentence on the pretext that he had served a substantial period of substantive sentence, had a family to support and had to find a suitable groom for his marriageable daughter. The appellant had raped the victim after trying to strangulate her under the effect of alcohol on the day of the incident.
The Court reiterated the facts and found that the the events had been planned and took when the victim was alone in the house. The Court held that judgment delivered by the trial court was correct, that there was no need to reduce the sentence and dismissed the appeal on merits. The Court went on to observe that it is the duty of every court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was committed and that undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law and society could no longer endure under such serious threats. [Vijay Vaidh v. State, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 8856, decided on 06-06-2017]
