Drunken driving: Man asked to serve at gurdwara

NEW DELHI: A man, sentenced to 10 days in jail for drunken driving, has been let off by a Delhi court which ordered him to offer community service at a gurudwara once a week for two months, noting that imprisonment will put an "indelible blot" on his career.
Additional sessions judge Virender Bhat ordered 29-year-old Surjeet Singh to perform community service at Gurudwara Singh Sabha at Khayala in West Delhi for 10 hours every Sunday for two months, after upholding his conviction by a magisterial court, but altered his punishment, saying that sentences are aimed at reforming a person.
Jailing often turns a first-time offender into a hardcore criminal, the court observed while setting aside the prison term awarded to the driver, father of two minor children.
"The purpose of sentence is and should be to reform a criminal so as to convert him into a law-abiding citizen. It is seen that the sentence of imprisonment, sometimes hardens the first-time offender and instead of reforming him, makes him a hardened criminal," the court said. Singh was found driving his car in an inebriated state, with alcohol content in his blood hovering at 313mg/100 ml, over 100 times above the maximum permissible limit of 30mg/100 ml.