Compensation can't replace jail term: SC

Top court says such a practice sends the wrong message to offenders

- FPJ News Service

The Supreme Court has deprecated the trend among certain HCs of reducing prison sentences in heinous offences by increasing the amount of compensation payable to victims.

It said such a practice sends the wrong message that offenders can escape punishment by paying money. Setting aside a Madras HC order, the SC restored the sentence of two men convicted of attempted murder, holding that monetary relief cannot substitute penal consequences, Live Law reports.

"Compensation payable to the victim is only restitutory in nature, and it cannot be considered as equivalent to or a substitute for punishment," a bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi said. "We have observed a trend amongst various HCs wherein the sentences awarded to the accused persons by the trial court are reduced capriciously and mechanically, without any visible application of judicial mind."