Proportionality/Balancing of Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances: Principle of proportionality should guide sentencing process. All the accused were found concurrently guilty under Section 148 IPC; they were armed with different kinds of implements and weapons, that were capable of inflicting deadly injuries. The postmortem report of Subhash revealed at least six serious head injuries, including fracture and haemorrhage in different places. Pawan, Uggarsain and Sita Ram, others from the complainant party also concededly suffered injuries. Though the High Court was of the opinion that no explanation was given by the prosecution about the injuries on the accused, their nature does not seem to have been serious. At any rate, the court did not find that sufficient reason to upset the sentence under Section 149 read with Section 304 II IPC. The sentencing in this case, to put it mildly, is inexplicable. The impugned judgment, in this court’s opinion, fell into error in not considering the gravity of the offence. Having held all the accused criminally liable, under Section 304 Part II read with Section 149 IPC
[Uggarsain v. State of Haryana, (2023) 8 SCC 109]
Case Comment: Different sentence for the convicts for the same offence – The impugned judgment fell into error in not considering the gravity of the offence. Having held all the accused criminally liable, under Section 304 Part II read with Section 149 IPC and also not having found any distinguishing feature in the form of separate roles played by each of them, the imposition of the “sentence undergone” criteria, amounted to an aberration, and the sentencing is for that reason, flawed. This court is, therefore, of the view that given the totality of circumstances (which includes the fact that the accused have been at large for the past four years), the appropriate sentence would be five years rigorous imprisonment.