Green justice gone very awry

The Supreme Court on Monday came down sharply on the Madhya Pradesh High Court for suspending the sentences of two murder convicts on the peculiar condition that they each plant ten saplings as a gesture of social responsibility.

- FPJ News Service

A bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice N.V. Anjaria did not mince words as it set aside the April 29 order passed by Justices Anand Pathak and Hirdesh. The order had granted suspension of sentence and bail to two men convicted under Sections 302 (murder) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code.

The convicts had been found guilty by a trial court in 2023 and sentenced to life imprisonment along with a fine. But the High Court, in an apparent attempt to combine punishment with philanthropy, suspended the sentence on the condition that the duo plant ten saplings each, reported Live Law.

Justice Kumar was visibly unimpressed. “On granting of suspension, the judge says you do the plantation? What is this? We will set aside this order and send it back,” he remarked in open court.