Reform over retribution: HC replaces rigorous imprisonment with probation, tree plantation service in fatal accident case

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that modern sentencing must distinguish between a “criminal” and an “offender” and cannot treat every wrongdoer as beyond reform. The assertion came as Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj directed a convict to perform community service by planting 50 indigenous trees and maintain them for five years. The Bench also ordered two-year probation in place of a two-year rigorous imprisonment sentence in a fatal accident case as a part of reformative process.

Holding that the case before it fell squarely within the category where "interest of justice would warrant a reformative approach in precedence to a punitive or retributive approach", the Bench directed the offender to compensate through labour in case the cost of five-year maintenance was unaffordable. “In the event of the petitioner not being in the capacity to deposit the cost of maintenance for five years, he shall offer his services to the department of forests to set off the cost as per the wages of an unskilled worker equal to adequate labour man-hours for the equivalent period as prescribed by the Deputy Commissioner concerned.”

Justice Bhardwaj asserted that punishment required a calibrated balance between retribution, deterrence and reformation. The Bench drew extensively from classic and contemporary criminological thought to assert that sentencing must evolve with societal values. “The imposition of punishment is a refined judicial function that demands a careful harmonisation of its underlying purposes namely, retribution, deterrence, and reformation.”

Justice Bhardwaj made it clear that this balance was required to reflect not only judicial reasoning but also “the ethical standards and social context in which justice is administered". Citing early criminological scholarship and modern jurisprudence, the Court recalled Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria’s doctrine of penal parsimony, which said: “Punishment, being in itself a necessary evil and devoid of inherent virtue, must be confined strictly within the bounds of necessity. The imposition of suffering or restriction upon an offender cannot extend beyond what is indispensable for the preservation of social order.”

Rejecting a blanket retributive approach, Justice Bhardwaj added it was regressive in nature, while rehabilitative/reformative approach examined the circumstances surrounding the offender on social, economic, physical and psychological level “so as to reintegrate the offender in the social mainstream". "The law extends the benefit of good and perceives a probability and possibility of reform,” he said.

Drawing a sharp distinction between an offender and a criminal, Justice Bhardwaj held the difference to be central to sentencing: “A mere involvement of a person in crime may not necessarily mark a person as a ‘criminal.’ ‘Criminality’ in mind and action has to be determined from the totality of circumstances and not just from an isolatory consideration of commission of an offence.”

Justice Bhardwaj noted that the petitioner—21 years and 11 months at the time of the 2014 accident—had no criminal antecedents before or after the incident and had not shown conduct suggestive of a “criminal bent of mind". The Court held that the offence arose from human error rather than mens rea.

“A Court of law would not assume every offender to be beyond reform and differentiate in punishment on considering whether the offences arise due to human error or that stem from actions propelled by mens rea,” Justice Bhardwaj added.