Murali vs State Rep. by the Inspector of Police

Court

Supreme Court of India

Date

5 January 2021

Case No.

Criminal Appeal No. 24 of 2021

Result

Partly allowed

Bench

N.V. Ramana, Surya Kant, Aniruddha Bose

Citation

[2021] 1 S.C.R. 201 : 2021 INSC 2

Headnote

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973: s.320 – Compounding of offence under ss.307, 324 – Prosecution case was that fifteen years ago, over a volleyball match, verbal altercation took place between victim-injured and original accused no.3 and 5 who after sometime cornered the victim along with the appellants and assaulted him – Appellant-M struck the victim on his head with a hockey stick and appellant-R tied to kill him by giving a neck blow with sharp edged object and in the process, left hand of the victim and the thumb and finger of his right hand got severed – Trial court held appellant-M guilty under ss.324 and 241 IPC and appellant-R under ss.307 and

341 IPC – Appellant-M was imposed three months rigorous imprisonment while appellant-R was sentenced to undergo five years rigorous imprisonment – Sessions court and High Court affirmed the order of conviction and sentence – Appellant challenged his conviction in the instant appeal – However, through an application, appellants sought to implead the injured-victim and get their offences compounded based on mutual resolution and peaceful settlement – Held: There can be no doubt that s.320 CrPC does not encapsulate s.324 and 307 IPC under its list of compoundable offences – Notwithstanding thereto, the fact of amicable settlement can be a relevant factor for the purpose of reduction in the quantum of sentence – The quantum of sentences awarded to the appellants can be reconsidered in view of the fact that at the time of incident, the victim was in college and appellants were in early twenties – Appellants had no other criminal antecedents, no previous enmity and now they are married having children – Both the appellants also served a significant portion of their sentences – In view of the position of law and the peculiar circumstances arising out of subsequent events, a sympathetic view taken – Quantum of sentence of the appellants reduced to the sentence already undergone by them – Penal Code, 1860 – ss.307 and 324.

The following Order of the Court was passed : ORDER 1. Leave granted. 2. These connected appeals have been preferred against the judgment dated 01.11.2018 of the High Court of Madras which upheld Murali’s (appellant in SLP (Crl) No 10813/2019) conviction under Sections 324 and 341 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”) with a sentence of three months’ rigorous imprisonment, and Rajavelu’s (appellant in SLP (Crl) 10814/2019) conviction under Sections 307 and 341 of IPC and sentence of five years’ rigorous imprisonment. 3. The prosecution case, in brief, is that on 07.08.2005, one Senthil ha

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