Overview
- Setting aside a 2020 Madras High Court order, the bench reinstated the trial court’s three-year sentence for attempt to murder.
- The court directed the two convicts to surrender within four weeks to serve the remaining term after credit for time already undergone.
- Victim payments under Section 395 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita were held to be purely restitutory and not a substitute for imprisonment.
- The judgment prescribed a four-factor framework for sentencing: proportionality, full consideration of case facts, societal impact, and a balanced view of aggravating and mitigating factors.
- Calling the practice “dangerous,” the bench criticized high courts for mechanically cutting jail terms while enhancing compensation and said the Madras High Court acted in complete defiance of the law.