Roshan Lal and Ors vs State of Punjab

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 197 of 1964

Decision Date: 3 December, 1964

Coram: A.K. Sarkar, N. Rajagopala Ayyangar, R.S. Bachawat

In the matter titled Roshan Lal and Others versus State of Punjab, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 3 December 1964. The judgment was authored by Justice A. K. Sarkar, and the bench was composed of Justices A. K. Sarkar, N. Rajagopala Ayyangar, and R. S. Bachawat. The petitioners were Roshan Lal and his co‑accused, while the respondent was the State of Punjab. The case is reported in the 1965 volume of the All India Reporter at page 1413 and also appears in the 1965 Supplement to the Supreme Court Reporter at page 316. The legal issue concerned the application of section 201 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, which deals with the removal of evidence of a crime in order to shield the offender. The particular question was whether the maximum punishment prescribed by that provision should be measured with reference to the offence that was actually committed or to the offence that the accused merely believed had been committed.

The factual backdrop, as outlined in the headnote, indicated that three appellants had been prosecuted for several offences under the Indian Penal Code and had been acquitted by the trial court. On appeal, the High Court of Punjab convicted one of the appellants under sections 330 and 348 of the Code and convicted all of the appellants under section 201, while acquitting them of the charge under section 304. The High Court imposed a sentence of three years of rigorous imprisonment on each appellant for the conviction under section 201, holding that they had removed evidence of a culpable homicide. The appellants obtained special leave to appeal to the Supreme Court and contended that the only offences proved to have been committed were those under sections 330 and 348. Consequently, they argued that the fourth paragraph of section 201 applied, which limits the punishment to one‑fourth of the longest term of imprisonment for the offences under sections 330 and 348, a calculation that yielded a maximum term of one year and nine months. The State, on the other hand, maintained that the term of imprisonment under section 201 should not depend on the actual offence whose evidence had been destroyed, but rather on what the accused believed the offence to have been. The State stressed the distinction in wording between the first paragraph of section 201, which uses the phrase “knowing or having reason to believe that an offence had been committed,” and the second paragraph, which employs the words “knows or believes to have been committed.”

The Court, speaking through Justices N. Rajagopala Ayyangar and R. S. Bachawat, held that the expression “knowing or having reason to believe” in the first paragraph and the expression “knows or believes” in the second paragraph are employed in the same sense. The Court explained that if the word “believes” were to be interpreted differently from the phrase “having reason to believe,” it would become necessary, for the purpose of imposing punishment, to prove that the accused both “believes” and also “has reason to believe.” Such a requirement would impose an additional evidentiary burden that the legislature did not intend. Accordingly, the Court could not infer that a person found guilty under the first paragraph of section 201 would escape liability under the subsequent paragraphs unless some additional fact or state of mind was demonstrated. (ii)

In examining the State’s contention, the Court noted that accepting the State’s view would mean that an erroneous belief or delusion on the part of the accused would determine the measure of punishment, rendering the accused punishable under the second paragraph of the provision with imprisonment extending to seven years. On such an interpretation, it would become possible for a person who merely removes evidence of an offence to receive a heavier sentence than the person who actually committed the principal offence; for example, where the substantive offence is punishable under section 323 but the accused, under section 201, destroys blood‑marks believing they resulted from murder, the latter could face a stiffer penalty. The Court therefore rejected the proposition that section 201 was intended to impose a more severe punishment for a minor offence than for the principal offence. The Court referred to the decision in 317 Chinna Gangappa, In re : I.L.R. (1931) 54 Mad. 68, which had considered and interpreted this issue. The Court further explained that the term “offence” wherever it appears in the first, second, third and fourth paragraphs of section 201 signifies a real offence that has actually been committed, and not an offence merely imagined by the accused. In the present case, it had not been established that an offence under section 304 had been committed by the appellants or by any other person; only offences under sections 330 and 348 of the Indian Penal Code had been proven. By the same act of burning the dead body of Raja Ram, the appellants caused the evidence of two offences—those under sections 330 and 348—to disappear. Taking a strict view, the Court held that the same act gave rise to two distinct offences under section 201. However, the Court cautioned that ordinarily a court should not award two separate punishments for the same act that constitutes two offences under section 201. Since the maximum punishment for an offence under section 330 is seven years’ imprisonment, the accused could at most be liable for one‑fourth of that term, which equals one year and nine months. Per Justice Sarkar, the Court observed first that there can be no dispute that an actual offence must exist before evidence of it can be destroyed, but that observation does not answer the State’s contention. The Court explained that if an offence is committed but is believed to be of a graver nature than it actually is, there is no principled objection to a law that makes the punishment for destroying the evidence depend on the accused’s belief about the nature of the offence, as discussed in paragraphs 320 C‑F of the judgment. Secondly, even if the State’s suggested interpretation were accepted, the sentence imposed in the present case could not be sustained. For that interpretation to aid the State, it would be necessary to show that the appellants believed that an offence under section 304 had been committed so that the case could be brought under paragraph 3. The High Court, however, had not reached a finding that an offence under section 304 had

It was observed that the appellants had not been found to have committed the offence for which they had been charged, because the trial court had acquitted them of that charge. Accordingly, the only allegation that could reasonably be made against the appellants was that they either knew or believed that a grievous hurt offence under section 325 of the Indian Penal Code had been committed. Since the maximum imprisonment prescribed for an offence under that provision was seven years, the maximum penalty that could be imposed on the appellants under the fourth paragraph of section 201 was one‑fourth of that term, which equals one year and nine months. The case was listed as a criminal appeal in the appellate jurisdiction, identified as Criminal Appeal No. 197 of 1964, and was taken up by special leave from the judgment and order dated 21 May 1964 of the Punjab High Court in Criminal Appeal No. 598 of 1963. Counsel for the appellants appeared, and counsel for the respondent also participated. Justice Sarkar delivered a separate opinion, while the judgment of Justices Rajagopale, Ayyangar and Bachawat was read out by Justice Bachawat, with Justice Sarkar also participating. The matter involved three appellants who had previously been prosecuted for various offences under the Indian Penal Code but had been acquitted by the trial court. On appeal, the Punjab High Court convicted the appellant Roshan Lal, who was a Sub‑Inspector of Police, under sections 330 and 348 of the Code, and also convicted all three appellants under section 201 of the Code. The present appeal challenged the High Court’s order, but the special leave granted was limited strictly to the question of whether the term of imprisonment imposed under section 201 was lawful. The High Court had found that Roshan Lal, together with a police party that included the other two appellants—one an Assistant Sub‑Inspector and the other a constable—arrested a man named Raja Ram on a public street on suspicion that he was an opium smuggler. The police took Raja Ram to Roshan Lal’s house, and when no opium was discovered, Roshan Lal became enraged and struck Raja Ram on the head with his baton, causing injury to his eye. For this injury Roshan Lal was convicted on one count under section 330. Subsequently, the police party took Raja Ram to the police station, detained him in a room overnight, and there Roshan Lal, assisted by some policemen, beat him further. The court found that the other two appellants did not participate in this beating. Accordingly, Roshan Lal was convicted on a second count under section 330 read with section 34, and also under section 348 for wrongful confinement of Raja Ram with the intention of extracting a confession. The following morning Raja Ram’s body was discovered dead in the room, lying in a pool of blood. The three appellants then removed the dead body, carried it to a jungle, burnt it, collected the bones and ground them in a pestle and mortar before discarding the remnants in a canal, actions for which they were convicted under section 201 for destroying evidence.

The Court recorded that after the body of Raja Ram had been reduced to fragments using a pestle and mortar, the remnants were discarded into a canal. On the basis of this disposal and the consequent destruction of evidence relating to the offences against Raja Ram, the three accused were each convicted under section 201 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Each appellant received a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for a term of three years for the offence under section 201. The sole point for determination on appeal was whether a three‑year term of imprisonment could be lawfully imposed under the provisions of section 201. The Court reproduced the text of section 201, which reads: “Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causes any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of screening the offender from legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information respecting the offence which he knows or believes to be false, shall, if the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed is punishable with death, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine; and if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment which may extend to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine; and if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for any term not extending to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term which may extend to one‑fourth part of the longest term of the imprisonment provided for the offence, or with fine, or with both.”

The appellants argued that the imposed three‑year sentence was not justified by section 201 because the underlying offences for which evidence had been destroyed were offences under sections 330 and 348, which, they said, brought the fourth paragraph of section 201 into operation, limiting the punishment to one‑fourth of the longest prescribed term for those offences. On that basis, they contended that the maximum imprisonment that could be imposed should be one year and vine months rather than three years. The State, however, maintained that the term of imprisonment under section 201 does not depend on the actual offences whose evidence was destroyed, but on the offence that the accused knew or believed had been committed; consequently, the sentence of three years fell squarely within the provision of the third paragraph. Counsel for the State further argued that the expression “the offence” in the third and fourth paragraphs must be read as referring to the offence described in the second paragraph, which speaks of “the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed.”

In this matter, the Court observed that the expression “the offence which the person accused under S. 201 either knew or believed to have been committed” referred to the offence that the accused either actually knew had been committed or merely believed had been committed. The Court found that, up to that point, the State’s argument appeared unassailable. The Court noted that it was unnecessary to examine a situation in which the specific offence was already known, because the statute plainly tied the punishment to that known offence. The State’s counsel argued that if S. 201 were not intended to make the punishment depend on the accused’s belief about the offence, then the words “which he … believes to have been committed” would become completely redundant. The Court agreed that an interpretation rendering a portion of the statutory language ineffective could not be accepted. Although the Court inclined to agree with this reasoning, it declined to give a final opinion at that stage, reserving further discussion for later. The appellants’ counsel then contended that, for an offence under S. 201 to be committed, there must first exist another actual offence. The Court cited its earlier decision in Palvinder Kuer v. State of Punjab (1) and a full‑bench judgment of the Allahabad High Court in Empress of India v. Abdul Kadir (2), stating that it accepted the principle that an actual offence must first occur in order for evidence of that offence to be destroyed. The Court further remarked that the legislature could not intend to punish a person solely because he believed his conduct constituted an offence when, in fact, it did not. Both points had been endorsed by the Allahabad High Court. However, the Court expressed that the requirement of an actual offence did not resolve the State’s contention. It imagined a scenario where an actual offence had been committed but the accused believed it to be of a more serious nature than it truly was. The Court held that there was no principled objection to a law allowing the punishment for destroying evidence to be based on the accused’s belief about the nature of the offence, even if that belief exaggerated the seriousness. The accused, the Court explained, was not being convicted because he mistakenly thought his conduct was illegal; rather, he had indeed committed the offence of destroying evidence of an existing offence, and the statute merely permitted the court to adjust the term of imprisonment according to his belief. Finally, the appellants’ counsel argued that the phrase “having reason to believe that an offence has been committed” appearing in the first paragraph of the section undermined the State’s position. It was suggested that accepting the State’s interpretation would require proving two distinct mental states: first, that the accused had reason to believe an offence had been committed, and second, what his belief was regarding the specific kind of offence. The Court indicated that this line of reasoning was unavailing, noting that the words “having reason to believe” in the first paragraph served to establish the requisite guilty mind, and that the statute could operate without demanding proof of two separate mental states.

The Court explained that accepting the State’s contention would require proving two separate mental elements: first, that the accused had reason to believe that an offence had been committed, and second, that the accused held a specific belief regarding the nature of that offence. Counsel for the State argued that requiring proof of both elements would be anomalous. The Court rejected this argument, holding that the State’s interpretation of the statutory provision does not lead to the conclusion that two distinct states of mind must be established before a person can be punished under the section. The Court noted that the phrase “having reason to believe” in the first paragraph of the provision was intended to supply the requisite culpable mindset for the offence. The Court observed that, without such a requirement, a person who destroyed evidence of an actual offence without believing that any offence had been committed would nonetheless be held liable, despite lacking a guilty mind, a result that would contravene basic principles of criminal law. The Court further stated that it is difficult to conceive of a situation in which a person believes that an offence has been committed yet does not also form a belief about the specific kind of offence involved. The Court reasoned that if a person has reason to believe that an offence occurred, he necessarily has reason to believe what that offence was. Consequently, the expression “having reason to believe that an offence has been committed” merely signifies that the person is taken to have believed that an offence occurred, which is essentially the same as the language “the offence … which he believes to have been committed” found in paragraph two of the statute. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the expressions “having reason to believe” and “he believes” describe the same mental state, and proof of one suffices as proof of the other. The Court found no anomaly arising from adopting the State’s interpretation of the provision. While the Court expressed an inclination to agree with the State’s counsel, it also observed that it is difficult to imagine a circumstance where a person convicted under section 201 could be found to have believed that the offence whose evidence he destroyed was of a higher degree than it actually was; such a question would be purely evidentiary. Even assuming the State’s interpretation, the Court held that the sentence imposed in the present case could not be sustained. For the State’s interpretation to assist its case, it must be shown that the appellants believed that an offence under section 304 had been committed, which is the prerequisite for applying paragraph three of the statute.

In this case the Court observed that the prosecution could have attempted to rely on paragraph 3 of the provision, but it was clear from the record that the High Court had not made any finding that the appellants had committed an offence punishable under section 304. In fact, the appellants had been acquitted of the charge under that section that related to the death of Raja Ram. Moreover, the High Court had not even concluded that the appellants believed that an offence under section 304 had been committed. The only statement made by the High Court on the matter was that “Raja Ram met his death by violence,” without any indication of which person, if any, had inflicted the violent act. It was therefore possible that the violence resulted merely in grievous hurt rather than death. Accordingly, the most that could be said on the basis of the facts was that the appellants either knew or believed that a grievous hurt offence under section 325 had been committed against Raja Ram. The maximum imprisonment permissible for an offence under section 325 is seven years, and the fourth paragraph of section 201 allows the court to impose a sentence of not more than one‑fourth of that maximum, which works out to one year and nine months. The Court noted that a similar approach had been adopted, correctly, in In re Chinna Gangappa (1). Accordingly, the Court decided to reduce the sentence imposed under section 201 to one year and nine months. The appellants, namely Roshan Lal, Lachhman Singh and Kulwant Rai, were police officers attached to the Jaito police station in the district of Bhatinda. Roshan Lal held the rank of Sub‑Inspector and served as the Station House Officer, Lachhman Singh was an Assistant Sub‑Inspector, and Kulwant Rai was a foot constable. The charges against them comprised a variety of offences under sections 330, 348, 330/34, 304, 342, 201 and 342/34 of the Indian Penal Code. The trial judge had acquitted all of the appellants on all counts. On appeal, the High Court held that on 24 December 1961, at the residence of Raja Ram, Roshan Lal, in order to extract information concerning the illegal possession of opium, struck Raja Ram with a danda, causing injury to his eye, thereby committing an offence under section 330. The High Court also found that Roshan Lal was responsible for the unlawful confinement of Raja Ram at the Jaito police station, and that together with other police officers he had subjected Raja Ram to labour during the night of 24 to 25 December 1961, thereby committing offences under sections 348 and 330/34. Consequently, the High Court convicted Roshan Lal of the offences under sections 330, 330/34 and 348 and imposed appropriate sentences for each. The High Court further held that all the appellants, “knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed and with the intention of shielding the offender from legal punishment,” had caused the evidence of the culpable homicide offence and of the offences under sections 330 and 348 to disappear by clandestinely burning the dead body of Raja Ram. On the basis of that finding, the High Court convicted all the appellants of the offence under section 201 and sentenced them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three

The Court observed that the High Court had ordered that the substantive sentences imposed on Roshan Law for offences punishable under sections 340, 348 and 201 were to run consecutively. All the appellants obtained special leave to appeal before this Court, but the appeal was restricted to the question of whether the sentence imposed under section 201 was lawful. The High Court had previously found that Raja Ram died as a result of violence on the afternoon of 25 December 1961. The appellants had been charged under section 304 for the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in relation to Raja Ram’s death, but they were acquitted of that charge. No evidence had been produced to establish that the offence under section 304 had been committed by the appellants or by any other person. Section 201, the Court noted, presupposes the existence of a real offence whose evidence is concealed or destroyed. Because the appellants could not be convicted for causing the evidence of a fictional offence under section 304 to disappear, the Court held that they must instead be convicted under section 201 for causing the evidence of the offences punishable under sections 330 and 348 to vanish. The Court further noted that it was not contested that the appellants knew or believed that those offences had been committed, a point affirmed by the counsel for the appellants.

The counsel for the appellants argued that the maximum term of imprisonment for an offence under section 330 was seven years and, therefore, the appellants could be punished under the fourth paragraph of section 201 for a term not exceeding one‑fourth of seven years, that is, less than two years. The State’s counsel countered that, although the first paragraph of section 201 makes the conviction dependent on the accused “knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed”, the second paragraph links the punishment to “the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed”. He argued that the wording of the second paragraph suggested that punishment should be based on the accused’s belief rather than the actual offence committed. Accordingly, the State’s counsel contended that the appellants believed not only that the offences under sections 330 and 348 had been committed but also that the offence under section 304 had occurred, and therefore they should be punished under the third paragraph of section 201 with imprisonment up to three years. In support of this view, the State’s counsel cited the decision in Chinna Gangappa, In re [1931] I.L.R. 54 Mad. 68, pointing out that the High Court had proceeded on the assumption that the appellants had reason to believe that an offence under section 304 had been committed. The Court noted that this assumption had not been contested by the appellants’ counsel, and therefore the Court proceeded on that basis. However, the Court could not accept the construction of section 201 proposed by the State’s counsel, namely that the appellants were liable to punishment under the third paragraph of section 201 with a term of imprisonment extending to three years. The Court observed that section 201 was drafted in a somewhat clumsy manner, but it held that the expressions “knowing or having reason to believe” in the first paragraph and “knows or believes” in the second paragraph were intended to convey the same meaning.

The Court observed that the phrase “knowing or having reason to believe” used in the first paragraph of section 201 and the phrase “knows or believes” employed in the second paragraph are intended to convey the same meaning. It illustrated this point by considering a situation in which an accused person has reason to believe that a crime has occurred. If the remaining requirements of the first paragraph are satisfied, that person becomes liable for an offence under section 201. The Court explained that if the term “believes” were to be interpreted differently from “having reason to believe,” then, in order to impose punishment, it would be necessary to establish both that the accused “believes” and that he “has reason to believe.” The Court declined to read such an additional requirement into the statute, stating that it could not be inferred that the legislature intended a person found guilty under the first paragraph to escape liability under the later paragraphs unless some extra fact or mental state were proved.

In the case before the Court, the High Court had recorded a finding that the appellants either knew or had reason to believe that an offence had been committed. The High Court did not make a separate finding that the appellants knew or believed that an offence was committed. The Court held that accepting the argument of counsel for the petitioner, which sought a distinction between “knowing or having reason to believe” and merely “knowing or believing,” would allow the appellants to avoid punishment altogether. However, the Court found that a separate finding on the latter expression was unnecessary. It clarified that the first paragraph of section 201 sets out the essential ingredients of the offence. First, it must be established that an offence has in fact been committed, as affirmed in Palvinder Kaur v. State of Punjab (1) and Empress of India v. Abdul Kadir (2). Second, the accused must know or have reason to believe that the offence occurred. Third, the accused must either cause any evidence of the offence to disappear or provide any information about the offence that he knows or believes to be false. Fourth, the accused must act with the intention of shielding the offender from legal punishment.

The Court explained that the second, third and fourth paragraphs of the provision tie the severity of the punishment to the seriousness of the underlying offence. The term “offence,” wherever it appears in the four paragraphs, refers to a real offence that has actually been committed, not to an imagined offence. Consequently, the punishment depends on the gravity of the actual offence that the accused knew or had reason to believe had taken place. The Court then illustrated this principle with a hypothetical: if an accused, upon seeing blood marks on the ground that resulted from an offence punishable under section 323, erased those blood marks with the intention of shielding the offender whom he erroneously believes to have committed murder, he could be convicted only on the basis that an offence under section 323 had been committed and that he acted with the intention of shielding that offender, believing that such an offence had occurred, and

The Court observed that a person who concealed evidence of an offence by screening a murderer could be punished under the fourth paragraph, which authorises imprisonment of up to three months, but such a person could not be convicted merely because he mistakenly believed that a murder had occurred. The Court explained that if the State’s argument were accepted, the accused’s erroneous belief or delusion would determine the severity of the punishment, leading to liability under the second paragraph with a maximum term of seven years’ imprisonment. The Court found it difficult to attribute to the legislature the intention of making a minor offence of screening an offender under section 201 punishable more severely than the principal offence committed by the main offender. In the Court’s view, it is unreasonable to interpret section 201 as providing a harsher penalty for a lesser offence than for the principal crime itself. The Court then referred to the judgment in Chinna Gangappa, In re (1), where the accused had also been charged with the murder of his wife but was acquitted of that charge. The death of the woman resulted from blows inflicted on her head with sticks or stones. Although the accused knew the person who delivered the blows, he attempted to shield that person by falsely suggesting that the woman had been stung by a scorpion or bitten by a snake. The Sessions Judge, while acquitting the accused of murder, convicted him under sections 201 and 203 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to five years of rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Madras High Court reduced the sentence to one year of rigorous imprisonment. The Court noted that counsel for the State relied heavily on a passage from the High Court’s observation: “It is clear that for the purpose of calculating the punishment to be awarded under section 201, it is necessary for the Court to decide, not so much what offence the evidence of which has been concealed has been committed, as what offence the accused knew or had reason to believe had been committed.” The Court rejected the proposition that this passage supported the State’s contention. It held that the judges in the High Court were referring to the first paragraph of section 201, not the second paragraph as suggested by counsel, because they spoke of the offence the accused “knew or had reason to believe had been” committed. A literal reading might imply that guilt under section 201 depends only on the offence concealed, while the measure of punishment depends on the accused’s belief. The Court disagreed with that construction. Instead, the Court concluded that, when read in the context of the entire judgment, the passage indicates that both conviction and punishment under section 201 are determined not primarily by the actual offence committed but by what the accused knew or had reason to believe to have been

In this case the Court explained that when a serious offence has been committed but the accused believed that only a minor offence had occurred, the punishment must be measured according to the offence that the accused thought had been committed. The Judges observed that, based on the evidence, it could only be established that the accused knew that someone had struck his wife and that she subsequently died, but it could not be concluded that the accused knew the striker intended to kill her. Nevertheless, it was clear to the accused that his wife died as a result of the blows and that she had at least suffered grievous hurt, an injury punishable under section 325 of the Indian Penal Code with imprisonment of up to seven years. Because section 201 makes the accused liable to a maximum of one‑fourth of the punishment prescribed for the hurt offence, the maximum term that could be imposed under section 201 was therefore one year and three‑quarters. The learned Sessions Judge, however, had sentenced the accused to five years of rigorous imprisonment, which exceeded the statutory ceiling. The Court held that a sentence of one year of rigorous imprisonment would be sufficient and accordingly reduced the punishment.

The Court further reasoned that it was reasonable to infer that the High Court had found that the offence of grievous hurt under section 325 had been committed in the presence of the accused, and that the accused was therefore aware of the offence, making him liable to one‑fourth of the seven‑year maximum for that offence. While the Court did not adopt every observation of the Madras High Court, it found that view supportive of the overall conclusion. Counsel for the respondents then argued that the appellants, by destroying the evidence of two separate offences charged under sections 330 and 348, had committed two distinct offences under section 201 and should be punished for each. The Court noted that the same act of burning the dead body of Raja Ram had caused the disappearance of evidence for both offences. Taking a strict interpretation, the Court recognised that this single act gave rise to two offences under section 201. The Court observed that the matter was not covered by section 71 of the Indian Penal Code nor by section 26 of the General Clauses Act, and therefore the punishment for the two offences could not be limited by those provisions. However, the Court stressed that ordinarily a Court should not impose two separate sentences for the same act that constitutes two offences under section 201. Consequently, the appropriate sentence for causing the evidence of the offence under section 330 to disappear should be imposed, and no additional sentence is necessary for the offence under section 348. The maximum penalty for the offence under section 330 is imprisonment for seven years, and

In applying the provision contained in the fourth paragraph of section 201, the Court determined that the appellants could be sentenced for at most one‑fourth of the maximum term prescribed for that offence, which is seven years of imprisonment. Accordingly, the upper limit of the punishment that could be imposed was calculated to be one‑quarter of seven years, equivalent to twenty‑one months. The factual circumstances of the case, as recorded by the trial court, were such that the Court found the maximum of that calculated term appropriate. Consequently, the Court directed that the sentences originally imposed on the appellants for the offence under section 201 be altered to a term of rigorous imprisonment of one year and nine months, which corresponds to the prescribed maximum.

The counsel for the petitioner, identified as Mr Girish Chandra, sought to challenge the entire conviction of Roshan Lal under section 201, arguing that the conviction itself was unlawful. The Court observed that the scope of the special leave petition was restricted solely to the question of the legality of the sentence and did not extend to a review of the conviction. Accordingly, the Court declined to entertain the request to set aside the conviction at this stage. On the basis of the foregoing considerations, the Court concluded that the appeal should be allowed in part. It ordered that the sentences imposed for the offence under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code be reduced to rigorous imprisonment for one year and nine months, while all other aspects of the judgment under appeal were confirmed. The appeal was therefore partially allowed.