Amit Gandhi @ Banty Gandhi vs State Of Chhattisgarh

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CGHC010294572016
NAFR
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR
Digitally signed
by INDRAJEET
SAHU
Date: 2026.10.16
16:04:22 +0530
INDRAJEET
SAHU
CRA No. 1120 of 2016
1 - Amit Gandhi @ Banty Gandhi S/o Late Maniklal Gandhi Aged About 31
Years R/o Sadar Line, Dongargaon, P.S. Dongargaon, District - Rajnandgaon
Chhattisgarh.
... Appellant
versus
1 - State of Chhattisgarh Through Police Station Dongargaon, District -
Rajnandgaon Chhattisgarh.
... Respondent(s)

For Appellant : Shri Faiz Kazi, Advocate.
For State : Shri Rohan Shukla, Panel Lawyer.
Hon’ble Shri Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, J
Judgment on Board
15.10.2026
1. The present appeal has been filed against the impugned judgment of
conviction and order of sentence dated 19.08.2016 passed by the
Additional Sessions Judge (Atrocities), Rajnandgaon, in Sessions Case
No.43 of 2013 whereby the appellant has been convicted for the
offence under Section 4 of The Chhattisgarh Protection of Debtors Act,
1937 (in short, the Act, 1937) and sentenced to undergo Simple
Imprisonment of 3 months with fine of Rs.500/-, in default of payment of
fine amount, additional SI for 15 days.

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2. Brief facts of the case are that, on 08.01.2012 the deceased Ranjit
Nishad committed suicide by poisoning. Merg intimation Ex.P/14 was
lodged at Police Station Basantpur, District Rajnandgaon and inquest
Ex.P/10 was prepared in presence of witnesses. Dead body of the
deceased was sent for its postmortem to District Hospital Rajnandgaon
where PW-6, Dr. Anil Mahakalkar conducted postmortem of the dead
body and gave his report Ex.P/5. In the postmortem report, the doctor
has opined that no definite opinion can be given regarding mode of
death and advised for Viscera examination from FSL. Suicidal note
Article-A/2,A/3,A/4 and A/5 have been seized by the police from the
pocket of pant of deceased vide Ex.P/12. While merg inquiry and
recording statement of witnesses, it reveals that the deceased was
being harassed and tortured by the accused persons for recovery of
loan amount which was advanced to him by the father of present
appellant. Despite having repaid the sufficient amount, the deceased
was being harassed and threatened by which the deceased committed
suicide on 08.01.2012. FIR Ex.P/5 was lodged against the accused
persons including the present appellant for the offence under Section
306/34 IPC and Section 4 of the Act, 1937. The suicidal note seized
from the pocket of pant of the deceased was sent for its handwriting
examination to State Examiner of Questioned Document, FSL Raipur,
from where report Ex.P/38 was received, according to which, the
handwriting of the suicidal note was matched with the natural
handwriting of the deceased.
3. Statement of witnesses were recorded and after completion of usual
investigation charge sheet was filed against the five accused persons

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including the present appellant before the Chief Judaical Magistrate,
Rajnandgaon, for the offence under Section 306/34 IPC and Section 4
of the Act, 1937. The case was committed to trial court for its trial
where the trial court has framed charge against the accused persons
for the offence under Section 306 IPC, in alternative, 306/34 IPC and
Section 4 of the Act, 1937. The accused persons denied the charge
and claimed trial.
4. After framing of charge, the accused Amit Gandhi and Jhaggar @
Ramnaresh challenged their charge before this court in Criminal
Revision Nos.136 of 2014 and 199 of 2014 which were allowed vide
order dated 11.09.2014 and they were discharged from the offence
under Section 306/34 IPC. Thereafter, in Criminal Revision No.492 of
2015 the accused persons namely Saiyad Afzal Ali and Rakesh were
discharged from the offence under Section 306 IPC vide order dated
13.05.2016.
5. In order to prove the offence against the appellant, the prosecution has
examined as many as 14 witnesses. Statement of the accused persons
under Section 313 CrPC were also recorded in which they denied the
circumstances appears against them, pleaded innocence and
submitted that they have been falsely implicated in the offence. The
present appellant has been examined himself as defence witness No.1.
6. After appreciation of oral as well as documentary evidence led by the
prosecution, the Trial Court has acquitted the accused Ajay Vaishnav
from the offence under Section 306 IPC, but has convicted five
accused persons for the offence under Section 4 of the Act, 1937 and
sentenced them for SI for three months with fine of Rs.500/- to each of

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the accused persons. The other accused persons have already
undergone the jail sentence, however, the present appellant have
challenged his conviction and sentence in the present appeal.
7. Learned counsel for the appellant would submit that though there is
lack of sufficient evidence against the appellant for his conviction under
Section 4 of the Act, 1937, however considering the fact that the said
offence does not provide any minimum sentence; the offence is of the
year, 2012 and he has already faced long litigation for more than 13
years, the sentence provided for the said offence is RI for three months
or fine, or with both, therefore he is not challenging his conviction for
the offence under Section 4 of the Act, 1937, but challenging the
sentence part only. He would further submit that the appellant is
presently aged about 41 years and having various family
responsibilities and there is no criminal antecedent against him and
therefore, considering the nature of offence and minimum sentence
provided for the offence, his sentence may be set aside and he may be
sentenced for fine amount only.
8. On the other hand, the counsel for the State opposes the prayer made
by the counsel for the appellant and would submit that the prosecution
has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. The trial court has
already taken a lenient view while awarding the sentence provided
under the Act, 1937 for the offence committed by the appellant and
therefore looking to the gravity of the offence and the manner in which
the accused persons molested the deceased, the appellant is not
entitled for any further leniency and appeal is liable to be dismissed.

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9. I have heard the counsel for the parties and perused the record of trial
court.
10. Although the appellant is not challenging his conviction, however in the
interest of justice this court examines the evidence produced by the
prosecution against the appellant.
11. The suicidal death of the deceased Ranjit Nishad is not in dispute.
Even from the evidence of doctor PW-7, who conducted postmortem of
the dead body of the deceased, have opined that the deceased died
due to suspected poisoning and as per the FSL report, Ex.P/33,
organophosphorus pesticide Chlorpyrifos was found in the viscera of
the deceased. Even the appellant has not specifically challenged the
nature and mode of death of the deceased, therefore, suicidal death of
the deceased is found to be undisputed.
12. So far as involvement of the appellant in the offence in question is
concerned, PW-3/Jambai, wife of the deceased have stated in her
evidence that her husband borrowed Rs.80,000/-from the father of
appellant and despite refund of the borrowed amount along with
interest, the father of appellant did not return their document. Even
after death of the father of the appellant, the appellant pressurized
them for more money in lieu of their borrowed amount which was
already returned. The appellant sent their muscleman and other friends
who forcibly took her husband with them and threatened them with dire
consequence. In her evidence, she disclosed the manner in which the
accused persons molested the deceased for recovery of said borrowed
amount. The importance piece of evidence is the suicidal note Ex.P/2
seized by the police from the pocket of pant of the deceased. From

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perusal of suicidal note Ex.P/2 which is Article-A/4, the name of present
appellant clearly reveals that he too was engaged in molesting the
deceased for recovery of amount. It is mentioned in the suicidal note,
Article-A/4 that- “
eSa jathr fu”kkn lkgwdkj ds raxh ds dkj.k vius vki dks
ugh cpk ik;k A fnus’k xka/kh ds HkkbZ us eq>s tku ls ekj nwaxk dgdj caVh
xka/kh us /kedh nh Fkh blfy, eSa ?kj ls 15 fnu ckgj Fkk tcfd eSa
bZekunkjh ls mldk ewny 8000@&ns fn;k Fkk mlls T;knk mlds rxknknkj
[kk x;k FkkA--------
13. From the evidence of PW-3, the wife of deceased, the involvement of
the present appellant in the offence in question had duly been proved
and even in her lengthy cross examination the defence was unable to
extract any incriminating material so that her evidence could be
disbelieved with respect to molestation of the deceased for recovery of
amount by the appellant. The said suicidal note was found to be in
handwriting of the deceased as per the report of State Examiner of
Questioned Document, Raipur, Ex.P/38. Thus, necessary ingredients
for commission of offence under Section 4 of the Act, 1937 is found
proved.
14. The trial court also after having considered the entire facts and
circumstances of the case and material available on record, held the
accused persons guilty for commission of alleged offence under
Section 4 of the Act, 1937, in which this court is in concurrence that the
accused persons have rightly been convicted for the alleged offence,
and thereby the conviction of the appellant is hereby maintained.
15. So far as sentence awarded to the appellant is concerned, the
submissions made by the counsel for the appellant is appealing to this

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court that the offence is of the year, 2012, the appellant is presently
aged about 41 years and saddled with innumerable family
responsibilities, he already suffered 13 years of criminal trial and that
the offence of Section 4 of the Act, 1937 does not provide any minimum
sentence and it provides sentence of simple imprisonment which may
extent to three months or fine of Rs.500/-, or with both.
16. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in Mohammad Giasuddin Vs. State of
Andhra Pradesh, 1977 (3) SCC 287 has laid down the law with
respect to awarding sentence to the accused persons. In paragraph 9 it
was held as under:
“9. Western jurisdiction and 'sociologists, from their own angle have
struck a like note. Sir Samual Romilly, critical of the brutal penalties in
the then Britain, said in 1817 : "The laws of England are written in
blood". Alfieri has suggested : 'society prepares the crime, the criminal
commits it. George Micodotis, Director of Criminological Research
Centre, Athens, Greece, maintains that 'Crime is the result of the lack
of the right kind of education.' It is thus plain that crime is a
pathological aberration, that the criminal can ordinarily be redeemed,
that the State has to rehabilitate rather than avenge. The sub-culture
that leads to anti-social behaviour has to be countered not by undue
cruelty but by re-culturisation. Therefore, the focus of interest in
penology is the individual, and goal is salvaging him for society. The
infliction of harsh and savage punishment is thus a relic of past and
regressive times. The human today views sentencing as a process of
reshaping a person who has deteriorated into criminality and the
modern community has a primary stake in the rehabilitation of the
offender as a means of social defense. We, therefore consider a
therapeutic, rather than an in 'terrorem' outlook, should prevail in our
criminal courts, since brutal incarceration of the person merely
produces laceration of his mind. In the words of George Bernard Shaw
: 'If you are to punish a man retributively, you must injure him. If you
are to reform him, you must improve him and, men are not improved
by injuries'. We may permit ourselves the liberty to quote from Judge
Sir Jeoffrey Streatfield : 'If you are going to have anything to do with
the criminal courts, you should see for yourself the conditions under
which prisoners serve their sentences.' In the same strain a British
Buddhist-Christian Judge, speaking to a BBC reporter underscored the
role of compassion : "Circuit Judge Christmas Humphreys told the
BBC reporter recently that a judge looks 'at the man in the dock in a
different way : not just a criminal to be punished, but a fellow human
being, another form of life who is also a form of the same one life as
oneself.' In the context of karuna and punishment for karma the same
Judge said : 'The two things are not incompatible. You do punish him
for what he did, but you bring in a quality of what is sometimes called

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mercy, rather than an emotional hate against the man for doing
something harmful. You feel with him; that is what compassion
means."
17. Further, in the matter of Raj Bala Vs. State of Haryana & Others, 2016 (1)
SCC 463 in paragraph 1 & 2 the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held as
under :
“1. In Gopal Singh v. State of Uttrakahand[1], while focusing on the gravity
of the crime and the concept of proportionality as regards the punishment,
the Court had observed:-
"18. Just punishment is the collective cry of the society. While the
collective cry has to be kept uppermost in the mind, simultaneously the
principle of proportionality between the crime and punishment cannot
be totally brushed aside. The principle of just punishment is the
bedrock of sentencing in respect of a criminal offence. A punishment
should not be disproportionately excessive.
The concept of proportionality allows a significant discretion to the
Judge but the same has to be guided by certain principles. In certain
cases, the nature of culpability, the antecedents of the accused, the
factum of age, the potentiality of the convict to become a criminal in
future, capability of his reformation and to lead an acceptable life in the
prevalent milieu, the effect - propensity to become a social threat or
nuisance, and sometimes lapse of time in the commission of the crime
and his conduct in the interregnum bearing in mind the nature of the
offence, the relationship between the parties and attractability of the
doctrine of bringing the convict to the value-based social mainstream
may be the guiding factors. Needless to emphasise, these are certain
illustrative aspects put forth in a condensed manner.We may hasten to
add that there can neither be a straitjacket formula nor a solvable
theory in mathematical exactitude. It would be dependent on the facts
of the case and rationalised judicial discretion. Neither the personal
perception of a Judge nor self-adhered moralistic vision nor
hypothetical apprehensions should be allowed to have any play. For
every offence, a drastic measure cannot be thought of. Similarly, an
offender cannot be allowed to be treated with leniency solely on the
ground of discretion vested in a court.The real requisite is to weigh the
circumstances in which the crime has been committed and other
concomitant factors which we have indicated hereinbefore and also
have been stated in a number of pronouncements by this Court. On
such touchstone, the sentences are to be imposed. The discretion
should not be in the realm of fancy. It should be embedded in the
conceptual essence of just punishment."
[Emphasis supplied]
2. Seven years prior to that, in Shailesh Jasvantbhai v. State of Gujarat
[2], it has been held that:-
"7. The law regulates social interests, arbitrates conflicting claims and
demands. Security of persons and property of the people is an essential
function of the State. It could be achieved through instrumentality of
criminal law. Undoubtedly, there is a cross-cultural conflict where living
law must find answer to the new challenges and the courts are required to
mould the sentencing system to meet the challenges. The contagion of
lawlessness would undermine social order and lay it in ruins. Protection of

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society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law
which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence. Therefore,
law as a cornerstone of the edifice of "order" should meet the challenges
confronting the society.
Friedman in his Law in Changing Society stated that:
"State of criminal law continues to be-as it should be-a decisive reflection
of social consciousness of society." Therefore, in operating the sentencing
system, law should adopt the corrective machinery or deterrence based
on factual matrix. By deft modulation, sentencing process be stern where
it should be, and tempered with mercy where it warrants to be. The facts
and given circumstances in each case, the nature of the crime, the
manner in which it was planned and committed, the motive for
commission of the crime, the conduct of the accused, the nature of
weapons used and all other attending circumstances are relevant facts
which would enter into the area of consideration.
8. Therefore, undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do
more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the
efficacy of law, and society could not long endure under such serious
threats. It is, therefore, the duty of every court to award proper sentence
having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was
executed or committed, etc. This position was illuminatingly stated by this
Court in Sevaka Perumal v. State of T.N.[3]"
[Emphasis supplied]
And again:- "The court will be failing in its duty if appropriate
punishment is not awarded for a crime which has been committed
not only against the individual victim but also against the society to
which the criminal and the victim belong. The punishment to be
awarded for a crime must not be irrelevant but it should conform to
and be consistent with the atrocity and brutality with which the crime
has been perpetrated, the enormity of the crime warranting public
abhorrence and it should "respond to the society's cry for justice
against the criminal"."
18. Thus, considering the submissions made by the counsel for the parties,
the nature of allegation and evidence available on record, the fact that
appellant is presently aged about 41 years and he must be saddled
with innumerable family responsibilities; the offence of Section 4 of the
Act, 1937 does not provide any minimum sentence and also
considering the ratio of law laid down by the Supreme Court in Raj
Bala (Supra) and Mohammad Giasuddin (Supra), this court is of the
opinion that ends of justice would meet if the appellant is sentenced
only with fine sentence instead of jail sentence.

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19. Accordingly, while maintaining the conviction of the appellant for the
offence under Section 4 of the Act, 1937, the jail sentence awarded to
him is set aside and instead thereof, he is sentenced to fine of Rs.500/-
along with compensation of Rs.10,000/- payable to the wife of
deceased i.e. PW-3, Jambai, as provided under Section 395(3) of The
BNSS, 2023. The appellant is on bail. His bail bond shall continue for a
further period of six months as provided under Section 481 of The
BNSS, 2023. The said amount of compensation of Rs.10,000/- shall be
deposited before the concerned trial court within a period of three
months from today, failing which, the trial court shall initiate appropriate
proceeding for recovery of said amount of compensation in accordance
with law.
20. With the aforesaid alteration/modification, the appeal is partly allowed .
21. Let a copy of this judgment and the original records be transmitted to
the trial Court concerned forthwith for necessary information and
compliance.
Sd/-
(Ravindra Kumar Agrawal)
Judge
inder