PUNISHMENT: THE INDIAN JURISPRUDENCE

Abstract

The sole object of punishment ought to be not merely the prevention but also the reformation of the offenders. It must be awarded in order to achieve any or as nearly possible of the core objectives namely, to serve as deterrent, to be preventive, to be reformative, to be retributive and to be expiatory. The public dislikes a criminal and this dislike is expressed in the form of punishment. Each society has its own way of social control for which it frames certain laws and also mentions the sanctions with them. These sanctions are nothing but the punishments. ‘The first thing to mention in relation to the definition of punishment is the ineffectiveness of definitional barriers aimed to show that one or other of the proposed justifications of punishments either logically include or logically excluded by definition.’ Punishment is the suffering in person or property inflicted by the society on the offender who is adjudged guilty of crime under the law. The administration of punishment involves the intention to produce some kind of pain which may be partly physical and partly mental varying from case to case depending upon the circumstances and personality of the offender.

In this paper we have talked about various kinds of theories of punishment based on which the offenders are punished. We have also discussed the merits and demerits of the different theories and deduced a conclusion based on that.

Punishment is good since it is corrective, deterrent and necessary for public welfare.