In a ruling underscoring the reformative purpose of sentencing and the toll of prolonged trials, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday reduced the sentence of a 50-year-old man convicted in a 2009 opium possession case to the period he has already undergone in custody. Justice Sumeet Goel, while upholding the conviction under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, modified the four-year rigorous imprisonment awarded to Balwinder Singh by a Karnal court, allowing him to walk free on payment of the pending fine of ₹25,000 within a month. The case dates back to 2009, when Singh, a Haryana resident, was arrested for possessing 500 grams of opium without a valid permit. He was convicted by the Special Court for NDPS Act cases in Karnal in November 2011 under Section 18(c) of the Act, and sentenced to four years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ₹25,000, with an additional one year in default. Singh challenged the trial court’s verdict in the High Court, initially contesting both conviction and sentence. However, at the recent hearing, his counsel Rahul Vats informed the bench that the appeal was now confined to seeking a reduction of the sentence, citing mitigating factors including Singh’s age, clean record, family responsibilities and the 16-year delay in conclusion of proceedings. Opposing the plea, Deputy Advocate General Deepak Kumar Grewal argued that the trial court’s sentence was consistent with the gravity of the offence and the legal framework under the NDPS Act. Justice Goel restricted the court’s consideration to the question of sentence, drawing from a recent Supreme Court judgment, which reaffirmed a reformative approach in sentencing where mitigating factors such as delay, clean antecedents and family obligations exist. “The prolongation of a criminal case for an unreasonable period is in itself a kind of suffering,” Justice Goel observed, quoting the Supreme Court’s characterisation of such delays as a form of “mental incarceration” that causes distress and agony to the accused. He noted that sentencing policy requires balancing deterrent and reformative aims, and that modern jurisprudence favours rehabilitation where the circumstances justify leniency. Applying these principles, the High Court noted that Singh, now 50, had faced legal proceedings for over 16 years and had no prior criminal record. Observing that the drawn-out process itself amounted to punishment, the court reduced his sentence to the period already undergone. The bench made it clear that if Singh fails to deposit the fine within a month, the relief will be withdrawn and he will have to serve the remaining term as originally imposed by the trial court.
