Courts in Odisha go off the beaten track

A first class Judicial Magistrate has passed an interesting judgment on a young offender in Odisha. 17 year old Tulu Behera, a domestic help with Khudiram Sahoo of Rahandia area of Bhadrakh town had been convicted of stealing from his employer. Instead of sending the teen to a juvenile home, he was sentenced to community service.

On 6th august, 2011, Sahoo reported the theft of Rs 51,200. Tulu’s name was mentioned in the FIR and was arrested. Rs 20,000 were recovered from him and he was charge sheeted. Hearing his case, magistrate Namita Das convicted him of the crime. However, instead of a stint in a juvenile home, she sentenced him to cleaning out the Bhadrakh district head quarter hospital every day for six months. The Chief Medical Officer has been asked to keep a keen eye on the delinquent and send a monthly report to the court on his performance.

This is not the first instance where a minor has been sentenced to community service instead of incarceration in Odisha. Orissa high court on 21st September 2011 ordered a youth, arrested for allegedly molesting a girl, to clean devotees' shoes at Chandi mandir in Cuttack. Apart from the kar seva, the court made two other conditions. First, the accused would save a part of his daily pocket money and spend it to provide chocolates, pencils, clothing, or study materials, to the children of any orphanage of his choice in the Cuttack city. The other condition is that he should associate himself with any voluntary organisation or group.

The decision has first raised a furore because cleaning the shoes of the devotees was not considered honourable enough. When the boy’s father wrote a letter to the court to that effect, the sentence was modified to “sweeping the floor of temple, preparing garlands to be offered to the deity, collection of flowers, preparation of sandal pastes, removing used flowers offered to the deity, serving food in community feast or any welfare work or ‘seva’ of the temple” once in a week for a year.

When contacted, Gadadhar Panda, a senior layer of Odisha High Court said, “Though these orders are out of convention, still they have a greater social impact. Criticism on human rights ground is not justified.” Another Bhubaneswar based layer Manoj Nayak echoed his sentiments. Talking to TSI he said, “These orders may be out of the law book, but their social impact is tremendous. So we should welcome it.”