Social Punishment Without Sentence: Convict Has To Offer Namaz 5 Times A Day

A Malegaon magistrate court in Maharashtra has sentenced an autorickshaw driver to plant two trees and offer namaz five times a day, after he was found guilty of intentionally causing harm in a case of road rage.

Tejwant Sandhu, the magistrate, reasoned that a simple warning wouldn’t be enough. It was crucial that the convicted party keeps in mind both the warning and his sentence so he does not repeat it.

The auto driver is required by the court decision to plant the two trees inside a mosque nearby the scene of the event and to care for them.

The court set this requirement in order to spare the accused from going to jail.

Rauf Khan Umar Khan, a 30-year-old autorickshaw driver, struck a parked bike with his vehicle in a congested Malegaon power-loom town lane in 2010.

Khan punched the complainant after the complainant questioned him about it. Khan was charged with violating Indian Criminal Code Articles 504 (intentional insult to cause breach of peace), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous harm), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and 506 (criminal intimidation).

While the magistrate found Khan guilty of Section 323, he was acquitted of the remaining charges. Khan was acquitted, with no jail time or punishment, on the condition that he follow the magistrate’s instruction.

According to the magistrate, Section 3 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, gives a magistrate the authority to release a criminal after admonition or adequate warning, so that he does not repeat the offence. Nonetheless, the court reasoned that a mere warning would not enough, and that it was critical that the convict remember the warning and his conviction so that he would not repeat it.

“According to me, giving appropriate warning means to give an understanding that the crime has been committed, the accused has been proven guilty and he remembers the same so that he does not repeat the offence again,” the bench observed.

Khan must plant and care for two trees on the premises of the Sonapura Mosque, where the crime was committed.

At the court, the accused admitted that, although being a Muslim, he did not perform regular namaz as prescribed by religious texts.

As a result, the court ordered the inmate to offer namaz five times a day for the next 21 days.

The magistrate further determined that these two directives fell under the purview of Section 3 of the 1958 Act and thus constituted an acceptable warning.