By IANS,
New Delhi : In a rare punishment, a city court Monday asked a former Delhi Development Authority (DDA) official to keep standing in the court till it wound up its business for the day, as punishment for committing forgery 25 years ago.
“Every saint has a past and every offender has a future,” the court said while awarding Jiwan Ram Gupta, 65, the punishment for the offence, which normally carries a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sanjeev Jain Monday also slapped a fine of Rs.50,000 on Gupta and said the punishment awarded to him was in view of his poor health and the long trial faced by him.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Gupta during the period 1982-83 had allegedly forged several documents purported to be valuable, such as pay-in slips, cheques, for operation of several accounts in various banks.
Gupta also forged account opening forms and specimen signatures for opening these accounts knowing that the forged documents would be used for the purpose of cheating and withdrawing money, the CBI alleged.
“Keeping in view the entire mitigating and incriminating circumstances, he deserves no leniency. But at the same time, everybody should get a lesson that results of wrong deeds have to be faced by every one at one or other time,” the magistrate said.
The judge observed, “The objective of punishment is either to prevent the crime or to create a sense of deterrence or to reform the person. In modern criminal jurisprudence, the theory of reformation has been approved and appreciated almost in all democratic countries.”
The court convicted Gupta under sections 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using forged document as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).