Understanding the landscape of Community Sentencing in India

INTRODUCTION

Justice is vital for generating and assuring public confidence. Community sentencing is a tool to assure public confidence in coherence to petty offences. The Indian dynamic of community service sentencing is at a nascent and developing stage devoid of any mechanism to rule out its implementation. The conjunction of restorative justice with sentencing policy (for petty offences) in India is a novel dialogue to further the cause of mechatronics of community order aiming to reassure the public with respect to the reformatory behavior of the offender.

Reassurance to the public along with the sufferer of the crime i.e. victim is the intent behind the community sentencing. The introduction of community sentencing is a long sought weapon that the Government has manifested. The 156 Law Commission of India Report along with Malimath Committee Report sought recommendations for incorporating community service as a mode of punishment in the sentencing policy of India.

COMMUNITY SENTENCING- WHAT IS IT?

As the literal meaning of 'Community Sentencing' is concerned, it implies providing service to the community in compensation or in addition to imprisonment for a crime which is committed and is in the nature of petty offences as BNS provides. It is a measure of sentencing that is not dependent on prison system but relies on the foundation of providing service to the community that may be in the nature of aiding in traffic management, aiding at old age homes or orphanages or child care institutions, etc.

The remnants of community sentencing can be construed from Section 18(1)(c) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 along with Honorable Justice Anand Pathak of Madhya Pradesh High Court who used to provide for bail on the precondition of planting a tree and thereby taking care of it as inked under the Sunitagandharava v. State of Madhya Pradesh.

Community Sentencing as a measure of reformatory theory of punishment is perused in the context of it as a new form of punishment. It is based on the precept of 'restoring it back'. It is vital in the Indian scenario to not only decrease overcrowding but also to instill the feeling of giving back to the society/ community in the mind and heart of the offender. It is a cornerstone fot justice delivery mechanism in the light of many factors that determines its relevance form the point of view of the community. It tries to incorporate the feeling to serving which generates empathy overtime to the offenders who have committed petty offences and gives them a chance of reformation by not sending them to prison. It is believed that once a person is sent to prison, he/she may come in contact with other criminals which may deviate him/her more away from reformation.

COMMUNITY SERVICE ORDER [CSO]- IT'S RELEVANCE IN INDIAN INTERFACE

In order to award a community sentence the court must pass an order or award a sentence for the petty offences eligible under BNS, which it deems fit. The major push back in Indian perspective is the lack of nature of the service specified to award the community service order. A CSO is an order of the court that vouches for the punishing an offender in light of the restorative justice. Restorative justice aims to restore the triangular relation of criminal, society and victim to the prior position, by making the offender/criminal go through some penance in the form of serving the society or community to showcase their intent to relocate back to the society in a corrective form.

In India, there are numerous cases of overcrowding and which is a sensational issue for the Prison Authorities. Community Service Orders allow the courts to provide certain offenders who have committed petty offences to be out of the purview of custody in prison who earlier were imprisoned for such offences. It has become a potential tool to minimize the overcrowding in the jails for petty-crime criminals.

NATURE AND PANORAMA OF COMMUNITY SERVICE SENTENCING

The sentence of community service depicts a push and pull factor in the Indian scenario. The push factor is due to the unavailability of implementation agencies that will look after the mechatronics of service and keep a track of them along with lack of types or nature of service that would be provided. There is no foundational basis of quantum to determine the nature of service and is thus left to the discretion of the judge. The pull factor stands with regards to the restorative justice policy it adopts aiming to reintegrate and reform the offender who has committed certain petty offences under the law specifying for community sentencing.

Certain provisions under the BNS that provide explicitly for community sentencing are as-

1. Section 202- It provides community sentencing in alternative to imprisonment which is on the discretion of the court wherein a public servant is unlawfully involved in trade.
2. Section 226- It provides for community sentencing upon the discretion of court if it deems fit in the cases where any attempt to suicide is done with the intention to stop a public servant from conducting his duties.
3. Section 303(2) - It provides for the CSO in such cases where theft is committed where the valuation is not beyond Rs 5,000/- and provided that the offender is the first time convict.
4. Section 335- It provides for community sentencing upon the discretion of court if it deems fit in the cases where there is any misconduct in public by any drunkard.
5. Section 356(2)- It provides for community sentencing upon the discretion of court if it deems fit in the cases where one person defames another.

SUGGESTION AND CONCLUSION

Community Sentencing is a thrust mechanism to create public confidence in the criminal justice system delving stronger proposition towards restorative justice and vouching for reformatory approach of punishment. The classical issue before India's policy of community sentencing is of its implementation and tracking. The laws in India are not clear with respect to the nature of the punishment to be provided along with it there is a gouge of limited access that is being laid down to the punishment.

The ambit of the sentence can be applied at areas such a probation, parole and also along with imprisonment which would allow the offenders to reintegrate more easily into the society. The new form of punishment is a regenerative form of punishment channelizing its avenues towards the community as well along with the offender and the victim which are always the talk of the criminal justice system.

References

1. Sunitagandharava v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2020 SCC OnLine MP 2193.
2. COMMUNITY SERVICE SENTENCE- A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ECOLOGY