Justice Redefined: The Evolution Of Punishment In Indian Criminal Law

I. INTRODUCTION

Historically, Criminal jurisprudence in India can be traced by examining that the idea of justice from time immemorial changed its course from primitive “an eye for an eye” to an eye for compensation. At first, the population managed conflicts with a confrontation, and only later did the State intervene as a justice administration system. In the early stages, the king played a crucial role in protecting his subjects, who, in turn, owed allegiance and paid revenue to the king. Justice was often administered by the king, or in certain circumstances, delegated to a judge. However, fines imposed on criminals were directed to the king's treasury rather than being given as compensation to the victim.

The legal landscape in India was modified under various rulers, and when the British arrived, they brought a distinct legal system based totally on British standards. However, this legal framework is no longer uniform throughout the United States, with different guidelines prescribing practices, and approaches. 

In 1834, the first Indian Law Commission was set up under the management of Macaulay, tasked with investigating the jurisdiction, powers, and guidelines of current courts and police institutions. The result was the drafting of the Indian Penal Code, which was submitted to the Governor-General of India in Council in 1837. Although circulated to judges and law advisors, it underwent another review in 1845 by some other Commission. The revised Code, based totally on the Commission's guidelines, was provided to the Legislative Council in 1856.

A transformative change has occurred in India's criminal law with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) replacing the IPC in a groundbreaking reform. This recent law aims to update and streamline the legal structure to efficiently tackle current issues. The BNS focuses on being transparent, inclusive, and aligning laws with India's changing socio-economic landscape. 

The BNS seeks to update an outdated colonial-era law with provisions aligned with contemporary ideas of justice, as minimal changes had been made to the law previously. It also represents India's desire to create a unique legal system that is in line with native beliefs and can handle challenging problems such as cybercrime, terrorism, and organized crime that were not adequately covered in the IPC. 

II. PURPOSE OF PUNISHMENT IN CRIMINAL LAW 

Punishment serves five identified functions: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution.

1. Deterrence, geared toward stopping destiny crimes, operates through precise deterrence for personal defendants and standard deterrence for the public. Specific deterrence goals are to dissuade a man or woman from committing further crimes by enforcing a punishment that instills worry. General deterrence aims to discourage the general public from crooking sports by making known the extreme effects confronted with the aid of individuals who've committed crimes.

2. Incapacitation prevents future crimes by bodily disposing of the defendant from society. This can contain incarceration, residence arrest, or, in intense cases, execution through the demise penalty. 

3. Rehabilitation focuses on altering the defendant's behavior to prevent future criminal acts. This may refer to such services as educational and vocational training, placement in treatment centers, or counseling. This means that rehabilitation can be incorporated with imprisonment, and supervision or release on specific conditions to address the root cause of criminality.

4. Retribution also serves to deter new offenses since it meets the desire for self-advancement against the defendant. When victims or society feel that the defendant has been punished enough, they increase confidence in the criminal justice system and the government.

5. Restitution, a type of financial punishment, deters the offender from committing further offenses by restoring the victim. This may involve compensation for tangible or intangible losses such as physical harm, lost property and/or money, and sometimes, hurt feelings. In the same manner, restitution can also serve as a fine instrumentally in helping address some of the costs of criminal prosecution as well as punishment.

III. PUNISHMENT: A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

(Easton, 2012) Punishment, in the context of the criminal justice system, is distinctly different from other forms of suffering or harm, such as medical treatments involving pain, as it is rooted in moral condemnation and serves as a response to violations of established rules. According to Feinberg (1994), the defining characteristic of punishment is its expressive function, involving the communication of attitudes of resentment and indignation. Punishment, as a conventional device, holds symbolic significance that sets it apart from other penalties, marking a form of societal retribution against the wrongdoer.

Feinberg also notes that punishment implies censure, or expressing a disapproval of a certain action, combining resentment and repudiation. It has resulted in probable problems, especially regarding constitutional protections and human rights aspects in criminal justice. The concept of Treasury regulation and punitive laws in criminal law is not always discernible and this may cause a problem. This in turn affects the legal entitlements of the individual about penalties imposed by their blameworthiness. They include football banning orders and sex offender claims registration schemes, and Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBO) form a topic of discussion about whether such measures are punitive or not which makes it difficult to categorize punitive measures.

The principle by which punishment rests is the moral one, one that stands as a reasoned judgment. Also, punishment is distinguished from suffering based on authority, where punishment is regarded as historically and principally as authoritative, commonly from the state in contrast to suffering executed by other means by unauthorized elements for violations. Even when looking at unfortunate incidents linked to receiving one’s payback for sins, the idea involves consideration of punishment concerning a higher authority.

 However, it is important to note that this discussion is more specifically confined to a punitive form of punishment administered in the criminal justice state, even though punishment can occur informally outside the legal realm. One type is the informal justice that has emerged and contends with disputes without referring to the professionals. Vigilantism is a basic type of informal justice, and state punishment is seen as a necessary way of preventing possible terrible abuses of unabashed citizens' justice, answering the public’s appetite for retribution.

IV. TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS IN ANCIENT INDIA

Historically, many countries' penal systems were harsh, cruel, and barbaric. Humanitarianism started to have an impact on penology toward the end of the eighteenth century, stressing that any prison program should be as mild as possible. Across the world, common forms of punishment included simple or harsh incarceration, confiscation of property, fines, and corporal punishments like flogging, mutilation, branding, and pillories chining inmates together.

1.       Capital Punishment/Death Penalty: 

Capital punishment, commonly known as the death penalty, is the execution of a person who has been sentenced to death by a court of law. In simpler phrases, it entails the government-approved exercise of setting someone to death as a consequence of their crook actions. In historical times, even minor offenses carried the death penalty, marking it as the most intense form of punishment. The methods used for executions in capital punishment have undergone occasional adjustments during records

2.     Corporal Punishment: 

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child defines corporal or physical punishment as any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light. Physical force aims to sear pain on the offender as a result of his evil behavior. It does not only aim at sentencing the individual but also acts as deterrence to potential wrong-doers because it highlights physically what their actions will result in.

a) Flogging: 

Flogging was one of the most widely used forms of corporal punishment for offenders. The Whipping Act of 1864, which was later repealed, replaced by a similar Act in 1909 and eventually abolished in 1955, authorized this form of punishment in India. Flogging is still a common form of punishment in the majority of Middle Eastern nations.

b) Mutilation:

Another popular form of physical punishment in the past was mutilation. It was known that this kind of punishment was used throughout the Hindu era in ancient India. Theft victims had their hands severed, sometimes both, and, in the case of sexual offenses, their privates were taken off. 

3. Financial Sanctions: 

Financial sanctions, occasionally termed the imposition of fines, were common penalties that were relatively less severe. These fines were typically issued for offenses such as violating road laws, revenue laws, and minor crimes. Additionally, financial sanctions encompassed covering the costs of criminal investigations and compensating the victims of the crime.

V. TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS IN MODERN INDIA

Modern Indian punishment practices are not as severe as prehistoric punishments and are slowly still changing from a barbaric approach. It means that in the current stage of the development of an organization, the degree of severe punishment depends on the degree of the committed offense. In the advanced industrialized world, people pay fines and/or undergo imprisonment, which should deter unlawful action rather than punish the offenders. 

The Hon'ble Supreme Court in Naib Singh vs State held that the “nature” of the punishment of imprisonment for life is rigorous imprisonment only and a criminal court could under section 418 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 by issuing a warrant, directing the execution of a sentence of life imprisonment in a prison. 

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita prescribes six types of punishment namely 

1.     Death; 

2.     Imprisonment for life; 

3.     Imprisonment, which is of two descriptions, namely:— (a) Rigorous, that is, with hard labour; (b) Simple;

4.     Forfeiture of property;

5.     Fine; 

6.     Community Service.

1. Death Sentence:

The word “death” denotes the death of a human being unless the contrary appears from the context.  The death penalty refers to the termination of a person’s life by the administration of a state. It is regarded as the harshest penalties strict for rating offenses. The death penalty is regarded as a kind of punishment that is severe for major infractions. It is an issue that modern criminologists continue to discuss and deliberate over the ethical ramifications of. Though the provision has been used in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to control its applicability it is restricted only to the “rarest of rare situations. 

2. Life Imprisonment: 

People facing the laws of the land and being guilty of a crime may be imprisoned for life. It is one form of punishment for persons who commit certain crimes that are often considered a better option than the death penalty. The Nyaya Sanhita specifically section 6 outlines the parliamentary term of life imprisonment as 20 years in prison. 

3. Imprisonment:

a.  Imprisonment is the word that means taking away the freedom of prisoners when they are punished by a court of law.

b.  There are three categories of imprisonment:

i.       Rigorous Imprisonment: Involves hard labor or labor-intensive tasks.

ii.     Simple Imprisonment: Offenders are kept in custody without mandatory labor.

iii.   Solitary Imprisonment: Isolates individuals from external contact, governed by Sections 11 and 12 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

4. Forfeiture:

a. Forfeiture refers to the loss of something as a punishment.

b. Three provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita cover forfeiture of property:

i.  Prohibition of property used or intended for committing trespasses on friendly nations' territories (Section 154).

ii.  Prohibition of property received with the knowledge that it was seized through armed conflict or robbery (Sections 153 and 155).

iii. Forfeiture of property acquired by a public employee not permitted by law to obtain such property (Section 203).

5. Fine:

Courts may impose fines along with or without imprisonment at the time of passing sentence. The Code mentions the punishment of fines for several offenses. Sec.8(1) says that the amount of fine shall not be excessive, where no sum is expressed to which a fine may extend, the amount of fine to which the offender is liable is unlimited.

6. Community Service:

Community service, introduced under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), offers offenders of minor crimes an alternative to traditional punishments. It emphasizes accountability and rehabilitation by requiring unpaid work that benefits the community. This approach fosters reintegration into society, reduces the strain on prisons, and promotes a more restorative form of justice

Provisions under BNS providing Punishment of Community Service 

The BNS has introduced community service in addition to imprisonment or fine as a form of punishment for the following six offences: 

·        Section 202: Public servant unlawfully engaging in trade 

·        Section 209: Non-appearance in response to a proclamation under section 84 of BNSS, 2023 

·        Section 226: Attempt to commit suicide to compel or restrain exercise of lawful power 

·        Section 303(2) proviso: Theft where the value of the stolen property is less than five thousand rupees and a person is convicted for the first time and returns or restores the value of property. 

·        Section 355: Misconduct in public by a drunken person. 

·        Section 356(2): Defamation  

These punishments reflect a nuanced approach to addressing various offenses within the framework of the legal system in India.

VI. CONCLUSION

By studying the history of punishment In Indian criminal law, it can therefore be seen that there has been progress from primitive retaliation to an organized and controlled system of justice. In the past, penalties were severe and most of them were directly on the offender as a way of preventing crime. In due course, several kings including the British introduced a formal legal structure, which aimed at a combination of deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution. 

Before India’s independence, the British formalized the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which divided different types of punishments including fines, imprisonment, and death penalty to mean justice and fairness. Here, the IPC focuses on preventing crime, protecting society from the offenders, compensating the victims, and reforming the convicted individuals thus making justice holistic. 

Contemporary punishment methods in India are much more lenient compared to the earlier times yet the Justice system is maintained in India. Present punishment methods are more systematic, to correct the offenders to prepare them to become law-abiding members of society. 

In general, the Indian criminal justice system aims at maintaining and achieving the purposes of deterrence, protection of society, retribution, and rehabilitation. This evolution is a major paradigm shift from retribution to Rehabilitation and restitution to maintain law in order and ensure that the rights of every person in society are respected.

This article is authored by Nidhi Dutia. She was among the Top 40 performer in the ADR Quiz Competition organized by Lets Learn Law.