Perform community service to restore criminal case: MP HC asks lawyer

Judge Anand Pathak asked a lawyer to visit Mercy Home at Gwalior with some food items and spend one hour with those who have been housed there

The Madhya Pradesh High Court (HC) has allowed the restoration of a criminal case which was earlier dismissed, as the lawyer performs one hour of community service at a children's home, the Bar and Bench reported on Friday.

According to the report, Judge Anand Pathak asked the lawyer to visit Mercy Home at Gwalior with some food items and spend one hour with those who have been housed there.

"This community service of one hour would not only be satisfying to the soul but would also give a message to the differently abled children that society and its members care for them and that they are not considered as the children of the Lesser God," the Court order read, according to the report.

The lawyer also has to submit a report within 15 days on her experience.

In August, India joined the ranks of countries like the US, UK, Sweden and many other developed nations, with the Centre proposing to introduce community service as a punishment for petty crimes in the Indian legal framework.

The proposed law to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC) also suggests community service in cases like suicide attempts, public servants unlawfully engaged in trade, theft of property less than Rs 5,000, public intoxication and defamation.

Pitched as a way to rehabilitate first-time offenders, community service has also been a useful tool to address the problem of crowded jails. Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill, 2023 in Lok Sabha.

"For the first time, we are introducing community service. It is in practice in some parts, but its introduction in the Indian law is being made now," he said.

Though there have been many instances of courts sentencing offenders to community service, no law or even guidelines are set in place that streamline such orders, which are often given at a judge's discretion.

In 2019, the Supreme Court ordered a doctor to plant 100 trees in a year as a punishment for attempting to commit murder at the age of 16.

In February of the same year, the Delhi High Court directed Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa and four others to plant 15,000 trees, observing that they had failed to file a response on an ED appeal challenging their acquittal in the 2G case.

(With agency inputs)