Sri Chhatradhar Mahato & Others vs The State Of West Bengal-14/08/2019

It is true that a flea-bite sentence should not be awarded for a serious offence. At the same time, one has to take into consideration diverse factors in awarding a sentence. Not only is the gravity of the crime to be considered, the other factors like the range of sentence imposable and the minimum sentence fixed, if any, are also to be taken into account. The aggravating as well as the mitigating circumstances are to be carefully weighed. For instance, in the present case, the aggravating factors are the seriousness of the crimes and the recovery of relatively sophisticated items like gelatin sticks and detonators. On the other hand, the mitigating factors are the acquittal of the accused under Section 307 of the Penal Code and the non-seizure of any huge cache' of arms or more sophisticated and lethal weapons like rocket launchers or RDX. Keeping all these factors in mind, an adequate sentence is to be imposed in this case.