IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Revision No.748 of 2005 Date of Decision 25.11.2010 Sanjiv Kumar @ Sanju ...... Petitioner VERSUS State of Punjab ...... Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.N.JINDAL Present: Mr.G.S.Bhatia, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Amit Chaudhary, Asstt. Advocate General, Punjab, for the respondent-State. ***** A.N.JINDAL, J: Challenge made in this petition is to the judgment dated 12.01.2005, passed by Addl. Sessions Judge (Adhoc), Fast Track Court-II, Hoshiarpur, dismissing the appeal against the judgment dated 23.11.2001, vide which the trial Court convicted and sentenced the petitioner-accused (herein referred as 'the petitioner') to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of nine months and to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- under Section 420 IPC. The allegations against the petitioner are that he received a sum of Rs.44,000/- from the complainant Mehar Chand for employing his two sons in Punjab Roadways Depot, Ropar but he neither got employment for them nor returned the said amount to him. On trial, he was convicted and sentenced accordingly. His appeal also failed. Without assailing the judgment of conviction, learned counsel seeks some leniency on the quantum of sentence. Even otherwise, on scrutiny of the impugned judgment, it Criminal Revision No.748 of 2005 -2- transpires that the evidence led by the prosecution appears to have been appreciated in the right perspective. No such illegality much less irregularity or any manifest error apparent on the record which may result into miscarriage of justice or cause any prejudice to the petitioner has been pointed out, therefore, the findings returned by the Courts below regarding conviction do not call for any interference at this revisional stage. Now coming to the quantum of sentence, it is noticed that the occurrence took place way back in the year 1999; the petitioner has already suffered a lot of agony due to pendency of proceedings in the Courts for the last eleven years and the sword of sentence remained hanging over his head since then. He has already undergone more than three months of the substantive sentence. Under the peculiar circumstances of the present case, it would be in the fitness of things to reduce the sentence to some extent. Resultantly, this petition is dismissed with the modification in the sentence,which is reduced to already undergone without any alteration in the sentence of fine. Copy of the order be sent to Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hoshiarpur, for compliance. (A.N.Jindal) Judge 25.11.2010 mamta-II