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Vetrivel vs State represented by its Deputy Superintendent of Police & Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 72Decided 19 Jan 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 106 of 2022
Ajay Rastogi · Abhay S. Oka

Background

The appellant was convicted under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and Section 323 IPC, after a dispute over a tailoring shop escalated: a quarrel between the appellant's relative and the complainant's children led the appellant to allegedly abuse and insult the complainant using casteist language and pull her by the hair. The trial court sentenced him to 3 years' rigorous imprisonment; on revision, the High Court upheld the conviction but reduced the sentence to 2 years. The Supreme Court had granted leave limited only to the question of the quantum of sentence, not the conviction itself.

Decision Breakdown

The Court noted that the incident arose from a property/shop dispute rather than being an unprovoked casteist attack, that the complainant did not suffer any serious injury (confirmed by the examining doctor), that the appellant was only 25 years old at the time with no other criminal antecedents, and that neither the trial court nor the High Court had given reasons for the specific sentence length chosen. Weighing these mitigating factors together with the fact that the appellant had already served more than 9 months in custody, the Court reduced the substantive sentence to 1 year's rigorous imprisonment, while directing him to pay a fine of Rs.25,000 (payable to the complainant) within six weeks, with a default sentence of 3 months.

Lesson Learnt

Even under special statutes carrying minimum mandatory sentences, appellate courts must record reasons for the specific sentence imposed and remain sensitive to genuine mitigating circumstances (such as the real context of the dispute, absence of serious injury, age, and time already served) when calibrating punishment.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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