modern jurisprudence plays far more stress on punishment and we believe that it will act as a deterrence for future offenders.But many traditional communities followed a different logic. They believed perhaps that reforming an offender was more important than just giving a punishment. 

in the present case, standing barefoot under the sun in deserts of rajasthan is a punishment by itself. But when the offender feeds grains to birds, he will have reflections about his conduct. Children will stand around him making fun of him, asking him questions about why did he do that, why was he feeding the birds now. The punya of feeding the birds might counterbalance a bit of pap he did while lopping the trees.

the possibility of self-rewarding a person while punishing him might inflame the desire for self correction better. Imagine, Raja being asked to set up primary schools from all the money he has made ( which can not be directly linked to scam though it may have been gotten illegitimately–the directly linked money should go into public coffers of course)) and put in various names,  in all the uncovered villages of the country! After a while, children will remember the education, schools and the rest, but will forget the scam may be. 

Better they do, legacy of scams will only breed contempt for rule bound behaviour, after all

what is the alternative, legal cases will continue for ages, brilliant lawyers hired by Raja will keep him away from gallows, and i dont know how much money will government really recover, assuming that it wants to recover that!!!

now, we have a choice, reformed raja or unreformed , unrepentant Raja, your choice!! but Raja nevertheless…..