Man caught begging freed after admonition

Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Jain freed Rajasthan Ram Gopal and gave him a week to furnish a bond of Rs 200 as a surety that he would not beg in future.

Gopal's sentence was modified by the sessions court on his plea for leniency, in which he said he was a poor and uneducated man and his wife had left her while his parents had died long ago.

The court said he has been detained since his arrest on September 25, 2012 from South Delhi and that was a sufficient period to make him "learn a lesson."

"Purpose of keeping a beggar out of the society has been duly served to large extent, therefore, I deem it appropriate that the sentence of imprisonment by way of detention in the Certified Institution be modified," the judge said, adding the "appellant is released after due admonition".

The police had booked Gopal under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959 and had told the court that 16 rupees, received by him as alms from passerby, were recovered from him.