The first case to be booked
under section-67 of the I.T.Act, 2000. But who could have ever thought
in his wildest dreams that a class XI student would be the first to be
booked under this section. This section provides for punishment for a term
of five years and a fine up to rupees one lakh and in case of subsequent
conviction with imprisonment, which may extend up to ten years and fine
up to rupees two lakhs.
This incident is not a new one .this
is the repetation of the acts committed earlier.
Students of this age group often
do this . This is more of a bad psychological phase than a criminal act.
The only way in which this incident differs from the other is that the
commission of this act a high-tech media was used.
This event has opened floodgates
of issues before us .the basic issue involved is the rehabilitation of
youths .It is not punishment or imprisonment that reduces crime , rather
it accelerate the crime rate.
The aim of criminology
is to reform the criminals so that may prove useful to the society.Crime
is a malady and the aims of every punishment should be the reclamation
of the offender by prescribing proper treatment.
Victor Hungs has shown his concurrence
by stating “We should look upon crime as a disease .Evil will be treated
in charity instead of anger. The change will be simple and sublime. The
cross shall display the scaffold.”. The treatment should aim at the
protection of not by removing the weak link but by strengthening it as
a result pursuing a judicious policy of reformation. The principle that
‘uninvestigated criminals are an expensive luxury’ should be a guide to
the reformers in tackling this problem.
Mahatma Gandhi one of the greatest
jurist India has produced has also expressed the same –‘Hate the and not
the sinner’. Thus he also believed that the way out from stopping people
commit crime is not by subjecting them to harsh penal consequence but by
loving them. It is the modern complex living conditions that have contributed
to the increase in crime rate amongst youths.
Further the remedies provided by
the Juvenile Justice Act,1986 are not adequate in this regard. The crux
of this whole penal system is based on a wrong conception. The ultimate
aim of penal consequence, even by those who advocate it is setting an example
for others so that they may refrain from committing such act in future
and of course ultimately reforming them. But do we really achieve this
?
Very recent example of this is of
Flogging. Flogging was earlier an accepted form of punishment .Later it
was discontinued . The reason behind it being the same –it does not reform
the criminals ,it rather hardens them. Dr. Darnes commenting upon flogging
has said “I never knew a convict benefited by flagellation. The beaten
man becomes more and more desperate character.” Dostoevsky on similar footing
has opined “It is a thorough misunderstanding of the nature of criminal
to believe that the fear of intense physical pain would prevent an outbreak
of his malice or passion”.
Justice Krishna Iyyer has
once stated that-“We must ,however direct our attention in a different
penological direction. For sentencing efficacy in cases of lust-loaded
criminality cannot be simplistically assumed by award of long incarceration
for often that remedy aggravates the malady. Punitative therapeutics
must be more enlightened than the blind strategy of prison severity where
all that happens is sex-starvation, brutalism, criminal companionship,
versatile vices through bio-environmental pollution, dehumanized cell drill
under ‘zoological’ conditions and emergence at the time of release, of
a embittered enemy of society as convict stamped on him – a potentially
good person “successfully” processed into a hardened deliquent
(juvenile), thanks to the penal
ill-literacy of the Prison system The court must restore the men.”
This clearly carves out the
rage and frustration of J.KI. In his above judgment he shows the real picture
of persons facing penal consequences and the treatment of society towards
them
Thus by punishing one it is
very wrong on our part to think that he will refrain from doing so in future
and will be rehabilitated. But on the contrary the truth is that “once
in – in for ever” commission of offence will become his part
of life.
I strongly feel that the spirit
of the framers of our constitution should be upheld and young persons should
not be punished or send to reformatories rather they should be treated
psychologically while keeping them in mainstream.
P.A.S.Pati
Contact Address:
Parthasarathi Pati
7 C, Ashok Nagar, Road No 1, Ranchi,
Jharkhand
885/4/1 Bandarkar Road, Deccan
Gymkhana, Pune 4
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