Bhagat Singh vs The Stategurdev Singh

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

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 38 of 1950

Decision Date: 19 December 1951

Coram: Saiyid Fazal Ali, Mehr Chand Mahajan, N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar

The case was styled Bhagat Singh versus The Stategurdev Singh, with the Caveator filing on the nineteenth of December, 1951. The matter was heard before the Supreme Court of India, and the judgment was authored by Justice Saiyid Fazal Ali. The bench comprised Justice Saiyid Fazal Ali, Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan and Justice N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar. The petitioner was Bhagat Singh and the respondent was The Stategurdev Singh, who also acted as the Caveator. The judgment was dated the nineteenth of December, 1951, and the same bench delivered it. The official citation of the decision is 1952 AIR 45 and 1952 SCR 371. The case was cited in later reports as R 1963 SC1620 (15) and involved section 234(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898. The central issue concerned mis-joinder of charges arising from a single shot fired at two persons with intent to kill. The appellant faced three charges: first, causing the death of person A under section 302 of the Penal Code. Second, firing a shot at persons B and C with the intention of causing their death, punishable under section 307 of the Penal Code. Third, firing a shot at person D with the intention of killing him, also punishable under section 307 of the Penal Code. The appellant argued that the second charge actually comprised two separate offences—attempted murder of B and attempted murder of C—thereby violating the limit of three offences under section 234(1). The Court held that the single act of discharging a shot at both B and C constituted one offence, not two, and therefore there was no mis-joinder. The judges clarified that their decision should not be interpreted as establishing a universal rule that a single act can never amount to more than one offence. In support of their reasoning, the Court approved the precedents set in Promotha Natha Roy v. King Emperor, Johan Subarna v. King Emperor, Poonit Singh v. Madho Bhot and Sudheendra Kumar Roy v. Emperor. The judgment arose from Criminal Appeal No. 38 of 1950, which challenged the order of the High Court of Patiala dated the fifth of October, 1950. The High Court judgment had affirmed the conviction and sentence imposed by the Sessions Judge of Sangrur. Counsel for the appellant were identified as Gopal Singh and Kartar Singh, while the respondent was represented by the Advocate General of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union assisted by Jindra Lal. Counsel for the Caveator included Jai Gopal Sethi, who was assisted by R. L. Kohli. The judgment was delivered on the nineteenth of December, 1951, by Justice Fazal Ali, who presided over the bench. It constituted an appeal against the High Court’s decision upholding the appellant’s conviction for murder handed down by the Sessions Judge of Sangrur.

In this case the appellant had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The prosecution presented a narrative that, while lengthy and complex, can be summarized by the material facts that were relied upon by the trial court. On 5 October 1949 a quarrel arose between the appellant and a man named Darbara Singh, during which the appellant assaulted Darbara Singh with a phawra, a cutting instrument. At roughly the same time Gurmail Singh, the eventual victim, returned from working in his cotton field to his house, which was situated near Darbara Singh’s dwelling, in order to fetch tea for his companions who were still laboring in the field. The appellant approached Gurmail Singh and requested that he lend him a spear so that the appellant could kill Darbara Singh. Gurmail Singh refused the request, and a heated exchange of insults ensued, followed by a physical struggle between the two men. This altercation was finally broken up by the intervention of several persons who were present at the scene. The appellant, apparently agitated by this confrontation, later armed himself with a rifle and proceeded to attack three persons who were in the vicinity of Gurmail Singh’s cotton field. First, he fired at Kartar Singh, the son of Satwan Singh, while that man was returning home from Gurmail Singh’s field; the shot missed and Kartar Singh was not injured. Subsequently, while Gurmail Singh was returning to his field after attending to his buffaloes in a nearby garden, the appellant pursued him and discharged his rifle, causing Gurmail Singh’s instantaneous death. Finally, the appellant is alleged to have fired at two other individuals, Kartar Singh, the son of Bishan Singh, and Jangir Singh, while they attempted to raise an alarm; both bullets missed their intended targets.

Based on these allegations the trial court framed three separate charges against the appellant. The first charge alleged that the appellant fired a shot at Gurmail Singh with a rifle, intending to kill him, and thereby caused Gurmail Singh’s death, which constituted an offence punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The second charge alleged that the appellant fired at Kartar Singh and Jangir Singh with the same rifle, intending to cause death and thereby attempting to cause their deaths, an offence punishable under section 307. The third charge alleged that the appellant fired a shot at Kartar Singh, the son of Satwan Singh, with the intention of killing him and attempted to cause his death, also an offence punishable under section 307.

The record indicates that the appellant served as an Instructor in the Home Guards, and that the rifle used in the alleged offences had been issued to him by his superior officer together with twenty rounds of ammunition. To support its case, the prosecution examined three eyewitnesses; their testimonies were scrutinized and ultimately accepted by both the Sessions Judge and the High Court. The learned Sessions Judge, after careful consideration, acquitted the appellant of the second and third charges under section 307, finding that the evidence did not convincingly demonstrate an intention to murder Jangir Singh and the other two persons. However, the judge upheld the conviction on the first charge under section 302, finding that the appellant’s act of firing at Gurmail Singh with intent to kill had resulted in Gurmail Singh’s death, and consequently imposed the death sentence, a sentence later affirmed by the High Court.

The Court observed that the evidence did not convincingly show that the appellant intended to murder Jangit Singh or the other two individuals. Nevertheless, the appellant was found guilty of the first charge, which was framed under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, and was sentenced to death. That death sentence was later affirmed by the High Court. The counsel representing the appellant had little substantive material to argue on the merits of the case, but he advanced a serious contention that the charges had been improperly joined and that such a misjoinder could not be tried together under the law. He further argued that this illegality had voided the entire trial of the appellant.

The Court noted that the argument presented before the High Court on this point differed from the argument adopted in the present proceedings. In the High Court, the emphasis was on the fact that the three incidents forming the basis of the appellant’s charges did not occur within the same transaction, and therefore could not properly be the subject of a single trial. The High Court relied principally on section 235(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which provides that if a series of acts are so connected as to constitute the same transaction, a person who commits more than one offence in that series may be tried for each offence in a single trial. The Court explained that this provision represents only one of the exceptions to the general rule enshrined in section 233 of the Code, which mandates that each distinct offence require a separate charge and a separate trial.

In the present case, the Court did not refer to section 235. Instead, the argument was confined to whether the present facts fell within another exception, namely the one found in section 234(1). Section 234(1) states that when a person is accused of more than one offence of the same kind committed within a period of twelve months—from the first to the last offence—whether against the same person or different persons, he may be charged and tried in a single trial for up to three such offences. It was contended before the Court that, although only three charges had been formally framed against the appellant, the appellant had in reality been tried for four separate offences. These four offences were identified as: (1) the murder of Gurmail Singh; (2) the attempted murder of Kartar Singh, son of Sarwan Singh; (3) the attempted murder of Jangit Singh; and (4) the attempted murder of Kartar Singh, son of Bishan Singh.

The counsel for the appellant maintained that the fact that the appellant had been acquitted of the last three offences while being convicted only of the first offence was irrelevant to his central point. According to him, the crucial question was whether all the offences listed above could be properly tried together. In the Court’s view, the short answer to this contention is that

The Court observed that the second charge, which alleged that the appellant fired at Kartar Singh and Jangir Singh, should be treated as a charge for a single offence rather than two separate offences. The prosecution evidence established that the appellant discharged only one bullet, and under the definition of “offence” in the Criminal Procedure Code, which describes an offence as any act or omission punishable by law, the single act of firing can rightly be characterised as one offence. The Court held that to divide this single act into two distinct offences would amount to an unduly narrow and artificial interpretation. In support of this approach, the Court cited several authorities where similar reasoning was applied. In Queen Empress v. Raghu Rai (1881 A.W.N. 154), a person who stole several bullocks from the same herdsman at the same time was found to have committed only one offence. In Promotha Nath Ray v. King Emperor (17 C.W.N. 479), misappropriation involving several account books was held to constitute a single offence. In Johan Subarna v. King Emperor (10 C.W.N. 520), an attempt to deceive multiple men by addressing them collectively was treated as one joint charge. In Poonit Singh v. Madho Bhot (I.L.R. 13 Cal. 270), a person who gave false information about two persons in a single statement to the police was found to have committed only one offence. Likewise, in Sudheendrakumar Ray v. Emperor (I.L.R. 60 Cal. 643), a person who fired several times at two constables was correctly regarded as having committed a single offence, even though the specific question was not directly decided. The Court concluded that the argument raised by the appellant lacked substance and did not intend to establish a broad principle that a single act can never constitute more than one offence. The remaining points raised by the appellant were related to the merits of the case, which the Court normally does not entertain on special leave appeals. Accordingly, the Court found the appeal to be without merit and dismissed it. The appeal was dismissed. The appellant was represented by an agent, and the respondent and the caveator were each represented by their respective agents.