The Supreme Court has said that social crimes like rape, kidnapping and moral turpitude should be firmly dealt with by courts and no leniency should be shown towards the offenders. "Offences against women, dacoity, kidnapping, misappropriation of public money, treason and other offences involving moral turpitude or moral delinquency which have great impact on social order, and public interest, cannot be lost sight of and per se require exemplary treatment," a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma. The apex court said the contagion of lawlessness would undermine social order and lay it in ruins, if not checked effectively. "Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence," the apex court observed while quashing the reduced sentence imposed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court on a rapist. The rapist Pappu was convicted for a rape and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for four years with a fine of Rs 2,000 by a Madhya Pradesh Sessions Court. However, the High Court on an appeal reduced the sentence to five months and 25 days, without citing any reason, upon which the State appealed in the apex court. Upholding the appeal, the apex court said while sentencing a criminal law should adopt the corrective machinery or the deterrent approach. "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," the apex court said. The apex court restored the sentence imposed by the Sessions Court and directed Pappu to surrender before the appropriate court to serve the remaining sentence.
