AMIT TALUKDAR, J. - (1.) MEN are not hanged for stealing horses but that horses may not be stolen" Glanville Williams in his famous "Treatise Textbook of Criminal Law" so quoted George Savile. Marquis of Halifax to amplify the utilitarian reason for punishment either to have effect upon the offender (particular deterrent) or by serving as a warning to other prospective wrong doers so that they may not choose the path of crime (general deterrent). Today this Mid -Victorian concept of sentencing has undergone a drastic overhaul in the workshop of moderm penalogists. From the earlier eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth paradigm the emphasis on the sentencing system is individualization which is 'aimed at fitting the offender rather than the offence. This concept has been developed in England in the earlier Century by Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham sought to achieve some sort of rationality in the Penal System by laying down guidelines for gradation of offence in terms of punishment. Jeremy Bentham in his classic work "The Rationale of Punishment": "It ought not to be forgotten, although it has been too frequently forgotten, that the delinquent is a member of the community as well as any other individual as well as a party injured himself; and that there is just as much reason for consulting his interest as that of any other. His welfare is probably the welfare of the community - his suffering is the suffering of the community. It may be right that the interest of the delinquent should in part be sacrificed to that of the rest of the community; but it never can be right that it should be totally disregarded. It may be prudent to hazard a great punishment for the chance of obtaining a great' good. It would be absurd to hazard the same punishment where the chance is much weaker, and the advantage much less. ''
(2.) THE Benthamite School of Thought greatly influenced the English Sentencing System where the sentencing process was grossly disproportionate in the 18th Century England. Death penalty was prescribed for murder and also for pick -pocketing and for horse theft to high reason. The Benthamite influence percolated from the 19th Century English Penal System to many other countries and the Indian Penal Code handy work of such giants of the First Indian Law Commission appointed under the Charter Act of 1833, comprising of Mr. Macaulay late Lord Macaulay) as the President and Macleod, Anderson and Millett as the Commissioners and subsequently revised by equally greater persons like Sir Barnesh Peacock. Sir J.W. Colwille and several others was also not immuned from such influence when it saw the light of the day in the New Year's Day of 1862.
(3.) IF the 18th and 19th Centuries was an era of deterrence in the focal point of the penal system, then the end of the 19th Century and the dawn of the 20th Century the reformative aspect of punishment and correctional approach was the signature tune in the New Era.;