Inder Singh Bagga Singh vs State Of Pepsu

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 6 August 1954

Coram: Bhagwati

In the present matter the Supreme Court considered an appeal filed by special leave against the decision of the High Court of PEPSU, which had upheld the conviction of the appellant for murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code and had affirmed the sentence of transportation for life imposed by the Sessions Judge at Bhatinda. The factual background, as recorded, indicated that the deceased, Bachittar Singh, had approached the appellant’s sister-in-law with a matrimonial proposal, prompting the appellant to instruct his cousin, Sunder Singh, to caution the deceased against such conduct. Sunder Singh, however, was not on speaking terms with Bachittar Singh and declined to convey the warning. A few days later, during the celebration of the marriage of Kartar Singh’s daughter, the wedding party assembled in the bethak of Hakim Dewan Chand, where recorded music was being played. Sunder Singh was seated on a platform listening to the music when Pearey Singh, carrying a bucket of milk from his outer house, walked toward his residence. The deceased, coming from the opposite side of his own house, encountered Pearey Singh in front of the appellant’s house, and they engaged in conversation. At that moment the appellant burst out of his house wielding a lathi, struck the deceased on the head from behind, and then delivered a second blow to the head as the victim turned toward him. The deceased fell, and the appellant inflicted a further blow to the victim’s neck. In total, six blows were administered by the appellant. Sunder Singh and Pearey Singh raised the alarm, and the appellant fled the scene. Immediate first-aid was rendered; water was poured into the unconscious victim’s mouth, and he revived after ten to fifteen minutes. Sunder Singh supported the victim and took him to his home, where he was laid on a cot. These events occurred on the night of 13 March 1952.

On the following day nothing further transpired, but on the morning of 15 March 1952 the deceased began to feel markedly unwell. He was conveyed on a cart to the police station at Mansa, accompanied by Sunder Singh and others. A first-information report was lodged, and the deceased was admitted to a hospital for medical care under the treatment of Dr. Bhagwant Singh. His condition deteriorated progressively, and on 28 March 1952 he became completely unconscious due to cerebral compression, ultimately succumbing to his injuries on 2 April 1952. Although the police had not taken any action upon receiving the initial report of injuries on 15 March, they later registered a case on 28 March after receiving further medical information, thereby initiating investigation into the offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code.

The police began a formal investigation into the alleged murder after receiving the further medical report from Dr. Bhagwant Singh and after the victim had died. The investigation was conducted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with murder. During the investigation the appellant was apprehended on 14-April-1952 in the village where he lived. The authorities also recovered a stick, identified as Exhibit P-1, which was alleged to be the weapon used in the offence, and it was found in the appellant’s possession at the time of his arrest. Following these investigative steps the appellant was forwarded by the police to stand trial for the alleged killing of the deceased.

The appellant denied having committed the crime and pleaded an alibi. He asserted that the deceased had earlier acted as a witness against him and his brother in a civil suit, and that on the night of the alleged incident the deceased had inflicted injuries on the appellant’s brother. The appellant claimed that the following day, during a gathering referred to as “Sath,” he expressed resentment toward the deceased for that earlier assault and indicated that, although he had not yet taken any action, he would do so in the future. According to the appellant, the injuries that the deceased sustained were not inflicted on the night of 13-March-1952, as the prosecution alleged, but rather on the subsequent night of 14-March-1952. The prosecution, however, based its case on the first information report lodged on 15-March-1952, which was treated as a dying declaration of the deceased, and on the testimony of two eyewitnesses, Sunder Singh and Pearey Singh. Pearey Singh’s testimony in the Sessions Court differed from the statement he had earlier given in the committing magistrate’s court. The learned Sessions Judge admitted Pearey Singh’s earlier statement into the record under Section 288 of the Criminal Procedure Code and relied on it together with the other evidence. Finding the combined evidence sufficient to establish the appellant’s guilt, the Sessions Judge convicted the appellant under Section 302 of the Penal Code and imposed the sentence described in the judgment. The High Court, on appeal, affirmed both the conviction and the sentence passed by the Sessions Judge.

In the present appeal, the counsel for the appellant reiterated the same arguments that had been rejected by both the Sessions Court and the High Court. Additional reliance was placed on alleged discrepancies concerning the date of the incident as reflected in the evidence and in Dr. Bhagwant Singh’s injury report to the police dated 15-March-1952, which recorded the date and time of the injury as “the 14th March 1952 evening.” The appellant’s counsel suggested that, besides the incident of 13-March-1952 recounted by the witnesses, there must have been another occurrence on the evening of 14-March-1952 that aggravated the victim’s condition and ultimately caused his death. While it is acknowledged that some inconsistency exists regarding these dates, neither the Sessions Court nor the High Court addressed this point, and no evidentiary foundation was laid to support the claim of a further occurrence on 14-March-1952. Consequently, the alleged discrepancy was not substantiated in the lower courts, and no material was introduced to prove that any additional incident took place on the later date.

The learned counsel for the appellant introduced this argument for the first time before the Court. Throughout the trial, the case had proceeded on the premise that the injuries inflicted on the deceased occurred solely on the evening of 13-3-1952 and that those injuries caused the deceased’s eventual death. The Court could not permit such a new contention to be raised at this advanced stage of the proceedings. Both the Sessions Judge and the High Court had reached a identical factual conclusion: the appellant had inflicted the injuries on the deceased on the evening of 13-3-1952 and those injuries were the direct cause of the deceased’s death. The Court found no reason to depart from that shared finding of fact. Consequently, the only issues that remained for decision were (1) the precise offence for which the appellant should be held liable and (2) the appropriate punishment to be imposed.

The evidence established that the appellant had struck the deceased with a lathi on six occasions and that the first wound, designated as injury No 1, was the fatal wound. Dr Bhagwant Singh, the attending physician, described injury No 1 in his report as a half-inch abrasion on the right parietal region, bleeding from the mouth, ecchymosis of the inner right upper eyelid, severe headache, and a suspected skull fracture. The doctor recommended an X-ray of the skull at Harindra Hospital, Faridkot, and kept the wound under observation. Although the deceased later exhibited mild signs of brain compression that progressively worsened, he remained conscious until 28-3-1952, when he became completely unconscious, suffered an extradural haemorrhage, and died. The physician’s testimony indicated that injury No 1 was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and that the gradual haemorrhage, which pressed on the brain, was the ultimate cause of death and could not be cured by any medicine. Relying on this evidence, the Sessions Judge concluded that the appellant’s conduct constituted an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. He noted that only one injury proved fatal, that the beating was not merciless, and that the deceased survived for about three weeks rather than dying instantly; therefore, the Judge sentenced the appellant to transportation for life. The High Court affirmed both the conviction under Section 302 and the life-transportation sentence, observing that the blow causing injury No 1 must have been delivered with considerable force, especially in view of the repeated blows to the head and the lathi’s length of five to six feet and diameter of one and a half inches.

In describing the weapon, the Court noted that the lathi measured one and a half inches in diameter. The Court observed that, given its size, the only reasonable intention of the appellant could have been to cause the death of the deceased. The High Court, having examined the evidence, affirmed the conviction of the appellant under Section 302 of the Penal Code and also affirmed the original sentence of transportation for life imposed on the appellant. While the Supreme Court agreed with both lower courts that the appellant was the person who inflicted the injuries which ultimately led to the deceased’s death, it expressed a view on the appellant’s mens rea. The Court held that although the appellant struck the deceased’s head with force, the lathi was not iron-shod and the deceased was a young, strongly built man. Consequently the appellant could not be said to have acted with the specific intention to cause death. Moreover, the Court observed that the medical evidence did not show that the injury, in the ordinary course of nature, was sufficient to cause death. Because the deceased survived for three weeks and a doctor had admitted that such an injury was not incurable. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that the appellant must have known that his assault would likely produce a bodily injury capable of causing death. Accordingly, the appropriate charge was for murder under Section 304 Part I rather than under Section 302. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appellant’s appeal to the extent that the conviction under Section 302 was substituted with a conviction under Section 304 Part I. The sentence of transportation for life was also replaced with a term of ten years’ rigorous imprisonment.