Prandas vs The State

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 14 March, 1950

Coram: B.K. Mukherjea, Fazl Ali

In this case, the Supreme Court noted that the matter arose from a special leave appeal filed against an order of the High Court at Nagpur. The High Court had allowed the appeal of the Government of the Central Provinces and Berar, filed under Section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which set aside the acquittal granted by the Sessions Judge of Bilaspur. The Sessions Judge had originally found the appellant, Prandas, guilty of murder of Gayaram and of causing hurt to Gayaram’s wife, Bahartin, and had imposed a sentence of life transportation for the murder and three months of rigorous imprisonment for the hurt, pursuant to Sections 302 and 323 of the Indian Penal Code.

The prosecution’s case, as presented at trial, could be summarized as follows. In the village of Taga, adjoining the village of Dhanwa where the alleged offence was said to have taken place, there lay a field owned by the deceased, Gayaram, and his sons, in which paddy had been sown during the year 1948. On the fifteenth day of August 1948, one of Gayaram’s sons, Hiraram, arranged for irrigation water to be drawn into this field from the field of his relative, Tiharu, by creating an opening in the ridge of a neighbouring field belonging to Sadhram. In the afternoon of the same day, Sukhchaindass, who was the brother of the appellant Prandas, stopped the flow of water coming from Sadhram’s field, claiming that Prandas had instructed him not to allow water to pass because Prandas had purchased that portion of land from Sadhram.

The following day, while Hariram and his father Gayaram were seated on the verandah of a man named Thandaram, Thandaram proposed to Prandas, who was sitting on his own verandah opposite Thandaram’s, that the dispute between Prandas and Gayaram should be resolved peacefully through a panchayat. While this proposal was being discussed, an altercation broke out. Prandas then advanced with a lathi to the place where Gayaram was standing and struck him several times. The first strike was deflected by Gayaram with his right hand, but the next two blows landed on his head, causing him to fall. After this, several of Prandas’s relatives assaulted Hariram and Hiraram, who were the sons of Gayaram, and Tiharu, a cousin of both Gayaram and Prandas, struck Bahartin, the wife of Gayaram. In response, Hiraram struck Prandas on the head.

Later that evening, between nine and nine-forty-five p.m., the police officer in charge of the Jangir police station, situated three miles from the site of the incident, recorded several statements. Among these was the report of Hariram, which was treated as the first information report in this case, as well as statements from Prandas and his relatives, who had also sustained injuries during the incident and gave their own versions of events. The version presented by Prandas, which formed the basis of the defence at trial, was largely identical to the prosecution’s narrative concerning the sequence of events that led to the clash.

According to the appellant, the version of events presented by the prosecution was inaccurate because he claimed that Hiraram, not Pran, initiated the assault by attacking him, and that Gayaram together with his men acted as the aggressors. The police promptly lodged a case and, following the ensuing investigation, five individuals—including the appellant—were committed to the Court of Session and charged under Sections 302, 148, 325 and 323 of the Penal Code. The Sessions Judge held that the statements of the four principal witnesses examined by the prosecution were completely unreliable, describing them as “interested persons, being Gayaram’s relations, and had suppressed material parts of the occurrence.” In reaching his decision, the Judge relied chiefly on the testimony of Thandaram and on that of a sixteen-year-old boy named Agardas, each of whom had observed only a portion of the incident. It is established that Thandaram was present at the time of the clash and that the first information report filed by Hariram listed him as a witness together with three other individuals—Ganesh, Bihari and Makkan. Nevertheless, the prosecution chose not to examine Thandaram or any of the three additional persons, and the defence, although having cited Thandaram as a witness, ultimately decided against examining any defence witness. In view of these circumstances, the Sessions Judge examined Thandaram as a court-witness; his account of the occurrence was markedly different from that of the prosecution witnesses. After recounting how the altercation began, Thandaram explained that he had suggested the parties resolve their dispute through a panchayat before describing the subsequent events.

Thandaram narrated that as Pran approached, Hiraram moved toward him with the intention of beating him and struck Pran with a gedi pole he had picked up from the ground, noting that many similar poles lay nearby. Pran, in turn, retaliated by striking Hiraram with another pole he had collected. Subsequently, Gayaram, Hari Nanki and Tiharu intervened and attacked Pran from one side, while Panch Ram, Videshi and Ghurbin came to Pran’s aid; the parties then began striking one another with the poles, creating a scene that Thandaram could not clearly distinguish, describing it as “like a Rout dance, one hitting the other.” He added that all participants had seized the gedi poles lying in the vicinity and used them against each other. Agardas testified that, after hearing a noise from a distance, he came close to Thandaram’s verandah and saw Prandas striking Gayaram on the head with a lathi, after which he fled in fear. Relying on Agardas’s evidence and other relevant circumstances, the Sessions Judge concluded that the prosecution had established the appellant’s responsibility for the fatal injury inflicted upon Gayaram. Accepting Thandaram’s testimony, the Judge held that “Gayaram and his sons and Tiharu are shown to be the aggressors on Pran, and Pran, helped by other accused as defenders, against an unjustified assault, had thus a private right to defend his…”

The Court noted that four of the accused—Prandas, Thandaram, Bidesi and Ghurbin—had collectively sustained ten injuries, including five head injuries and a fracture of an arm bone, and observed that the greater number of injuries suffered by members of Gayaram’s family did not affect the legal analysis concerning the right of private defence. Relying on this observation and agreeing with the assessors, the Court held that none of the charges framed against the accused had been proved and therefore acquitted them. Dissatisfied with this order of acquittal, the Provincial Government filed an appeal before the High Court. The High Court allowed the appeal by an order dated 14-9-1949, thereby convicting the appellant under Sections 302 and 323 of the Penal Code and sentencing him to transportation for life and three months’ rigorous imprisonment, the two sentences to run concurrently. The High Court also set aside the acquittal of the other accused, imposing short terms of imprisonment or fines on them, though those individuals did not pursue further appeal to the Supreme Court. In reaching its decision, the High Court judges chose not to rely on the evidence of Thandaram, concluding from his admissions and the fact of his defective eyesight that he was unable to perceive how the attack originated. The Court placed considerable weight on the testimony of Agardas, who stated that Prandas had struck Gayaram on the head, and noted that although the prosecution’s evidence chiefly derived from interested witnesses, it was reinforced by Agardas’s account and corroborated by Hariram’s first information report. When considering whether the appellant’s conduct fell within exception four to Section 300 of the Penal Code, the High Court held that the exception could not be invoked in his favour because it could not be said that Prandas had not taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner. The Supreme Court further observed that it could not accept the view expressed in several precedents that the High Court lacks authority under Section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code to overturn a judgment of acquittal unless the judgment is perverse or the lower court has misdirected itself, leading to a miscarriage of justice. In the Court’s opinion, the correct position regarding the High Court’s jurisdiction under Section 417, in an appeal from an order of acquittal, had been articulated in Sheo Swarup v. Emperor, at pages 229-230 (A), in the words that follow.

Sections 417, 418 and 423 of the Code confer upon the High Court complete authority to re-examine the whole of the material upon which an order of acquittal was based and, after such re-examination, to decide that the acquittal ought to be set aside. The Code does not impose any restriction on that authority unless a restriction is expressly provided for in the statute. While exercising that statutory power, the High Court must, before arriving at any factual conclusion, give proper weight and consideration to several well-recognised principles. First, the opinion of the trial judge concerning the credibility of the witnesses must be respected. Second, the presumption of innocence that favours the accused remains intact and is not lessened merely because the accused has previously been acquitted. Third, the accused is entitled to the benefit of any doubt that may exist on the facts. Fourth, the appellate court must be cautious in disturbing a finding of fact that was made by a judge who had the advantage of observing the witnesses in person. Stating these principles merely reflects the fact that the High Court, in conducting an appeal, will act in accordance with the established rules and principles that are well known in the administration of justice.

Having set out the correct legal position, it cannot be said that the learned High Court judges were obliged to attach to the evidence of Thandaram the same weight that the learned Sessions Judge had given it. Nevertheless, before the High Court’s ultimate conclusion can be affirmed, certain aspects of its judgment require careful scrutiny. Two main questions arise in the present case. The first question is whether Prandas delivered the fatal blow; the second, assuming the answer to the first is affirmative, is whether any justification or mitigation can be raised on his behalf. Both the Sessions Court and the High Court have answered the first question in the affirmative, and therefore that issue is settled. Regarding the second question, the Sessions Judge had held that the accused was protected by the law of private defence, a view that the High Court rejected. In the present opinion, the judgment of the High Court is supported on the short ground that the testimony of Thandaram himself does not sustain a plea of private defence. Thandaram testified that Hira, the son of Gayaram, was the first to assault and that he attacked Prandas with a gedi pole. On the basis of that fact alone, Prandas cannot be said to have possessed the right to inflict a fatal blow on Gayaram, who was not present with Hira at that moment, although that fact might have justified him in striking back at Hira. The remaining issue that emerges from the High Court’s judgment is whether the case falls within exception four to Section 300 of the Penal Code.

The Court turned to the fourth exception to Section 300 of the Penal Code, which states that “culpable homicide is not murder if it is committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel and without the offender’s having acted in a cruel or unusual manner.” The Sessions Judge had expressed a clear view that the testimony of the four prosecution witnesses, who claimed that Gayaram and his companions were assaulted sequentially without any provocation, could not be accepted. According to the Sessions Judge, the factual picture was instead that a free fight had taken place in which both sides struck each other. The High Court, in its judgment, initially appeared to present two contradictory observations on this point. In paragraph 26, the learned judges observed: “Although the prosecution evidence mainly emanated from interested witnesses, it was supported, as shown, by that of Agardas; and it was also corroborated by Hariram’s first information report, Ex. P-1.” In the following paragraph, however, they stated: “Exception 4 to Section 300, Penal Code cannot operate in his (Prandas’s) favour, inasmuch as although the culpable homicide can be said to have been committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel, it cannot be said that Prandas had not taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.” The Court reasoned that these two statements could be reconciled only if the first observation referred solely to the part of the prosecution case concerning the strike on Gayaram’s head, a portion of the evidence that was indeed corroborated by Agardas. This interpretation allowed the Court to align the later conclusion in paragraph 27 with the overall probabilities of the case, noting that four of the accused persons also suffered injuries and that the distribution of injuries between the parties was roughly even. Accordingly, the Court found no conflict with the testimony of Agardas, which both the Sessions Judge and the High Court had accepted as credible. The next issue before the Court was whether the High Court was justified in refusing to grant the benefit of the fourth exception to Section 300, even though it had found most of the elements of that exception to be satisfied. The High Court had concluded that the case did not fall within the exception because “it cannot be said that the appellant had not taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.” Beyond this terse statement, the High Court provided no detailed reasoning to support its conclusion. Medical evidence, however, showed that Prandas sustained six injuries during the incident, including a bone fracture and a head wound. The High Court did not expressly overturn the Sessions Judge’s finding that these injuries were not inflicted after Gayaram and his companions had been assaulted, nor did it express disagreement with the Sessions Judge’s finding that Gayaram was not assaulted after he fell to the ground. The Sessions Judge’s record indicated several inconsistent statements by witnesses regarding the number of blows dealt by Prandas, while Agardas spoke of only a single blow. In light of these discrepancies, the Court found that the High Court’s refusal to apply the exception could not be sustained, leading to the conclusion that the conviction under Section 302 was untenable and that the case more appropriately fell within the second part of Section 304, which deals with culpable homicide not amounting to murder when the act is done with knowledge of the circumstances.

In this case, the Court noted that the record contained an injury to the head and that the High Court had not expressly set aside the finding of the Sessions Judge that those injuries had not been sustained after Gayaram and his companions were assaulted. The Court also observed that the High Court had not expressed any disagreement with the Sessions Judge’s finding that Gayaram was not assaulted after he fell to the ground. The judgment of the Sessions Judge showed that the witnesses gave several inconsistent statements regarding how many blows Prandas had dealt, while the testimony of Agardas mentioned only a single blow. In view of these inconsistencies, the Court concluded that the High Court’s view that the appellant was not entitled to the benefit of exception 4 to Section 300 of the Penal Code could not be sustained, and consequently the conviction under Section 302 could not be upheld. The Court further held that the facts fell within the second part of Section 304, which prescribes punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder when the act is performed with knowledge that it is likely to cause death or bodily injury likely to cause death. Accordingly, the conviction was altered to one under Section 304 and the appellant was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years. The Court affirmed that the appellant’s conviction and sentence under Section 323 of the Penal Code would remain in force, and that the sentence imposed under that section would run concurrently with the newly imposed sentence under Section 304.