The Supreme Court in Budhiyarin Bai v. the State of Chhattisgarh reduced the sentence awarded to an aged and illiterate lady who was found guilty of possessing the commercial quantity of illegal 'Ganja'(Cannabis).
The instant appeal arose from an order dated 26th February, 2018 upholding the conviction of the appellant for the offence u/s 20(b)(ii)(C) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and sentenced to 15 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1 Lakh, in default to pay fine, is a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for 3 years to be undergone separately. She appealed to the High Court but the same was dismissed. Hence, this petition.
The Hon’ble Bench while considering her appeal observed that none of the Courts mentioned above have considered that she has a clean track record, is illiterate, poor, and unaware of the law. Moreover, she is living with 2 grown-up children.
Therefore, the Court partly allowed the appeal and reduced the sentence to 12 years, noted thus:
17. “We are of the considered view that the offences under the NDPS Act are very serious in nature and against the society at large and no discretion is to be exercised in favour of such accused who are indulged in such offences under the Act. It is a menace to the society, no leniency should be shown to the accused persons who are found guilty under the NDPS Act. But while upholding the same, this Court cannot be oblivious of the other facts and circumstances as projected in the present case that the old illiterate lady from rural background, who was senior citizen at the time of alleged incident, was residing in that house along with her husband and two grown-up children who may be into illegal trade but that the prosecution failed to examine and taking note of the procedural compliance as contemplated under Sections 42, 50 and 55 of the NDPS Act, held the appellant guilty for the reason that she was residing in that house but at the same time, this fact was completely ignored that the other co-accused were also residing in the same house and what was their trade, and who were those persons who were involved into the illegal trade providing supplies of psychotropic substances, the prosecution has never cared to examine.”
18. “..We are not going to examine the question any further but taking in totality of the matter and the background facts which have come on record that she was an illiterate senior citizen on the date of the incident, i.e., 15th January 2011, having no criminal record, and was from the rural background, completely unknown to the law and unaware of what was happening surrounding her, all these incidental facts have not been considered by the learned trial Court while awarding sentence to the appellant.”