IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Revision No.1297 of 2001 Date of Decision 23.12.2010 Chiman Lal and others ...... Petitioners VERSUS State of Punjab ...... Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.N.JINDAL Present: Mr.Kuldeep Khandelwal, Advocate, for Mr.Kapil Aggarwal, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr.Amit Chaudhary, Asstt. Advocate General, Punjab, for the respondent-State. ***** A.N.JINDAL, J: Challenge in this petition is to the judgment dated 21.08.2001, passed by the Appellate Court at Sangrur, dismissing the appeal against the judgment dated 25.07.2000, passed by Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Sunam, convicting and sentencing the petitioners-accused (herein referred as 'the petitioners') to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay a fine of Rs.500/- each on each count under Sections 406 and 120-B IPC and rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- each under Section 408 IPC. The allegations against the petitioners are that they misappropriated a sum of Rs.1,65,000/- of Co-operative Society, Sunam, which were to be distributed to the members. On the basis of letter No.2626 dated 03.09.1984, written by Assistant Registrar, Cooperative Society, Sunam, FIR, in this regard, was registered and the matter was investigated. On trial, they were convicted and sentenced accordingly. Their appeal also failed. Without assailing the judgment of conviction, learned counsel seeks some leniency on the quantum of sentence. Criminal Revision No.1297 of 2001 -2- Even otherwise, on scrutiny of the impugned judgment, the evidence, as examined by the prosecution, appears to have been appreciated in the right perspective. Sufficient evidence, has been led to prove that the accused persons have misappropriated the funds of the society. No such illegality much less irregularity or any manifest error apparent on the record, has been pointed out, which may result into miscarriage of justice or cause any prejudice to the accused, therefore, the findings returned by both 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 in the year 1987; the petitioners have suffered a lot of agony on account of the pendency of proceedings in the Courts for the last twenty three years and the sword of sentence remained hanging over their heads since then. They have already undergone more than 4½ 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 one year without any alteration in the sentence of fine. Copy of the judgment be sent to Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sangrur, for compliance. (A.N.Jindal) Judge 23.12.2010 mamta-II