302 IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment. Whether judgment, order and sentence passed by the Sessions Court and affirmed by the High Court requires to be affirmed or the sentence is to be converted and punishment to be awarded u/s. 304 of IPC and if so, which part of s.304 IPC? Penal Code, 1860 – s.302 and 304 Part II – Limited question before the Supreme Court regarding the affirmation of sentence u/s. 302 IPC or conversion of sentence to s.304 IPC:
Held: In the instant case it can be noticed that appellant-convict and the deceased were in love with each other – The fact that deceased had stopped talking to the appellant and she was talking to her neighbour, had made the appellant furious and he was upset about this change of attitude of the deceased – Even according to the testimony of PW-1 (mother of the deceased), there was altercation between the appellant and the deceased regarding their love affair – Appellant got infuriated and in that spur of the moment he caught hold of her hair and banged her head to the wall which resulted in blood oozing out and on seeing this he ran away from the scene of the incident – Thus, the single assault by the appellant coupled with the duration of the entire period having occurred for about 2-3 minutes would not be sufficient to infer that he had the intention to kill the deceased – In the facts of the case, it is discernible that there was no premeditation to cause death or the genesis of occurrence and the single assault by the accused and duration of entire episode, were factors to adjudge the intention – Therefore, conviction of the appellant u/s. 302 is altered/converted to one u/s. 304 part II of the IPC and the appellant is sentenced to the imprisonment to the period already undergone and directed to be released forthwith. [Paras 20 and 21] Penal Code, 1860 – When accused can be held guilty u/s. 302 and
304 Part-II of IPC:
Held: Where the evidence would not disclose that there was any intention to cause death of the deceased but it was clear that the accused had knowledge that his acts were likely to cause death, the accused can be held guilty under second part of s.304 IPC – It is in this background that the expression used in Indian Penal Code namely “intention” and “knowledge” has to be seen as there being a thin line of distinction between these two expressions – The act to constitute murder, if in given facts and circumstances, would disclose that the ingredients of Section 300 are not satisfied and such act is one of extreme recklessness, it would not attract the said Section – In order to bring a case within Part 3 of s.300 IPC, it must be proved that there was an intention to inflict that particular bodily injury which in the ordinary course of nature was sufficient to cause death. [Para 16] LIST OF CITATIONS AND OTHER REFERENCES
Basdev Vs. State of Pepsu AIR 1956 SC 488 : [1956] SCR 363; Pulicherla Nagaraju @ Nagaraja Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh AIR 2006 SC 3010 : [2006] 4 Suppl. SCR 633; Pratap Singh @ Pikki v. State of Uttarakhand (2019) 7 SCC 424; Deepak v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2018) 8 SCC 228; Anbazhagan v. The State represented by the Inspector of Police in Criminal Appeal No. 2043 of 2023 – relied on.
Rampal Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2012) 8 SCC 289 : [2012] 7 SCR 160 – referred to.
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As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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