Odisha court orders boy to clean hospital area for theft

Bhubaneswar, April 28 (IANS) A court in Odisha has ordered a boy to clean the outdoor of a hospital for six months as he was found guilty in a theft case, a government lawyer said Saturday.

Namita Das, chief judcial magistrate at Bhadrak, about 140 km from here, awarded this punishment to the 17-year-old boy (name withheld) after holding him guilty Friday of stealing about Rs.20,000 from the house of a villager in August last year.

"The court awarded this punishment so that he could correct himself because it was his first crime," lawyer Jatikanta Nayak told IANS.

Khudiram Sahu, a resident of Randia village on the outskirts of the district headquarters town of Bhadrak, had lodged a police complaint that Rs.51,000 were stolen from his house August 6, 2011.

Police arrested two minor boys after recovering from their houses Rs.20,000 and Rs.12,000 respectively. The court, however, acquitted teh other boy for lack of conclusive evidence.

"The court ordered him to clean the hospital outdoor complex for six months from May 1," the lawyer said. "This is for the first time in the state that a court has given a judgment like this," he added.

Citing the judgment, the lawyer said the boy would have to report to the chief district medical officer at Bhadrak who will supervise his work and submit a periodic report to the court on the implementation of the court order. "The boy has to clean the floor of the hospital outdoor complex every day," he said.

Earlier, the Odisha High Court in September last year had granted bail to a 19-year-old youth accused of misbehaving with a young girl at a marriage function in the state on the condition that he would polish the shoes of devotees at a temple for three months.