Quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Delhi HC reduces sentence of 5 men accused of aiding JeM

We have always seen novels and poetry as a thing of amusement and escape, but they are more than that. Often they are “products of their times”, and sometimes can be applied to present times.

Recently, during a Delhi High Court hearing, the bench cited Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment while announcing a sentence.

Delhi High Court on May 20 decreased the sentence of five members of the terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The court reduced the punishment from life imprisonment to 10 years of prison time for the offence under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Russian author Dostoyevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment, “The man who has conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin,” meaning, that if a man knows that he has done something wrong, he will suffer from the guilt and that will both be his prison and punishment.

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A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain said, “…keeping in mind the gravity of the matter, though, appellants did not deserve any unjustifiable leniency, at the same time, considering their…inclination of reformation… the life sentence was not warranted either…”

The bench further said, “We refer to a quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the author of ‘Crime and Punishment’… Dostoevsky writes that ‘if he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake…”

The five men were earlier booked under Section 121A IPC, which refers to conspiring to commit an offence under Section 121 or conspiring by using criminal force on the Central government/any state government.

The five men are - Bilal Ahmad Mir, Sajjad Ahmad Khan, Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat, Mehraj Ud Din Chopan and Ishfaq Ahmad Bhatt. They had pleaded guilty before the trial court to the offences lodged against them under IPC and UAPA and were convicted. In September 2022, the five men were accused of “allegedly assisting JeM operatives and were involved in recruiting others for propagating and supporting the cause of JeM”.

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In November 2022, the trial court sentenced them to life imprisonment, after which they moved the HC challenging the quantum of sentence.

While observing that the gravity of the offence cannot be undermined, the bench, however, said that there is “no charge that they (appellants) had committed any terror act” and had been held “guilty primarily for conspiring and not for committing any terror act as such”.

(With inputs from agencies)