Baba Natarajan Prasad vs M. Revathi
Background
The appellant-husband complained that his wife married another man while divorce proceedings between them were still pending, and a child was born from that second marriage: an offence of bigamy under Section 494 IPC. The trial court convicted the wife and the second husband, sentencing each to one year's rigorous imprisonment and a fine, but on appeal the first appellate court had acquitted them; the Madras High Court then restored the conviction but the accused did not challenge that restoration, leaving only the husband's separate appeal on the ground that the sentence was still too lenient.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court reiterated that sentencing must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and cannot be reduced merely because time has passed since the crime. However, weighing the fact that a child born of the second marriage was now about six years old and that the maximum sentence under Section 494 IPC is seven years with no prescribed minimum, the Court exercised judicial discretion to actually reduce the sentence to six months' simple imprisonment each (and reduced the fine back to Rs. 2,000 each), while directing that the two accused surrender one after the other, never simultaneously, so the child would not be left without a parent at any point. The Court expressly clarified this staggered-surrender arrangement was not to be treated as a precedent.
Lesson Learnt
Even in cases where a complainant seeks enhancement of an "inadequate" sentence, courts weigh present-day humane circumstances, such as the welfare of a young child, alongside the general principle that punishment should be proportionate to the crime.