Orissa HC spares 60-yr-old jail, says imprisonment would be ‘counter-productive’

The bench declined to send him to prison and instead ordered that Bastia be released on a bond of ₹5,000 for three months under Probation of Offenders Act and Section 360 of the CrPC

Nearly three decades after a land dispute turned violent in an Odisha village, the High Court of Orissa on Thursday ruled that sending a 60-year-old man to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence would serve “little penological purpose” and risk casting a “needless stigma” on him and his family.

While giving him relief, the court noted he had no criminal antecedents. (Representative file photo)

Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra, while upholding the conviction of Laxman Bastia under Sections 323 and 294 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), declined to send him to prison and instead ordered that Bastia be released on a bond of ₹5,000 for three months under Probation of Offenders Act and Section 360 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

“Incarcerating him after such a long delay would serve little penological purpose,” the court observed, accepting the submission of the amicus curiae, “and may in fact be counter-productive, casting a needless stigma not only upon him but also upon his family members.”

In June 1995, Bastia was accused of assaulting Lata Barik, a landless Dalit labourer in Rengali village of Bolangir district over a land dispute while she was returning from a grocery shop. A sessions court in Bolangir convicted Bastia in November 1997, sentencing him to one year of rigorous imprisonment under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, among other sentences. He appealed to the High Court that same year till it was heard in this month.

While giving him relief, the court noted he had no criminal antecedents, had “integrated well into society,” and was leading a “settled family life.”

The High Court which turned down his conviction under SC/ST Atrocities Act on procedural ground, however upheld the convictions under the IPC for voluntarily causing hurt (Section 323) and obscene acts in a public place (Section 294).

The court however agreed to the arguments of amicus curiae, advocate JR Dash who said that jailing a 60-year-old man after nearly three decades of legal proceedings would be an exercise in futility.