meager sentences.. counter productive in the long run

Ahmed Hussein Vali Mohammed Saiyed and Anr Vs State of Gujarat, (2009) 7 SCC 254, Hon'ble Supreme Court of India observed as 

“99.….The object of awarding appropriate sentence should be to protect the society and to deter the criminal from achieving the avowed object to law by imposing appropriate sentence. It is expected that the courts would operate the sentencing system so as to impose such sentence, which reflects the conscience of the society and the sentencing process has to be stern where it should be.

Any liberal attitude by imposing meager sentences or taking too sympathetic view merely on account of lapse of time in respect of such offences will be result-wise counter productive in the long run and against the interest of society which needs to be cared for and strengthened by string of deterrence inbuilt in the sentencing system.

100. Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime. The court must not only keep in view the rights of the victim of the crime and the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment. The court will be failing in its duty if appropriate punishment is “not awarded for a crime which has been committed not only against the individual victim but also against the society to which both the criminal and the victim belong”