Khacheru Singh And Ors. vs State Of Uttar Pradesh

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 10 November, 1955

Coram: B.K. Mukherjea, Imam, J.

The case titled Khacheru Singh and others versus State of Uttar Pradesh was decided by the Supreme Court of India on 10 November 1955. The judgment was recorded by Justice Imam, and the opinion was authored by Justice B.K. Mukherjea. The principal question before the Court was whether the conviction of the appellants under Sections 323 and 326 in conjunction with Section 34 of the Penal Code was legally justified given the facts of the present case. The magistrate who originally tried the appellants had framed a charge under Sections 148, 323 and 326 read with Section 149 of the Penal Code. Acting on that charge, the magistrate found the appellants together with seven other persons guilty and entered conviction and sentence. On appeal, the Second Additional Sessions Judge of Meerut set aside the convictions of all accused except the appellants, upheld the finding of guilt against the appellants, and reduced their sentences. The appellants then approached the High Court of Allahabad under its revisional jurisdiction. The High Court held that, as a result of the earlier judgment of the Additional Sessions Judge, the elements required to establish an unlawful assembly were lacking; consequently, the appellants could not be convicted under Section 148 or under Sections 323 and 326 read with Section 149. Nevertheless, the High Court convicted the appellants under Sections 323 and 326 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code. The appellants obtained special leave to appeal this decision to this Court.

Two versions of the incident were placed before the lower courts. The version presented by the prosecution, except for the identity of the persons who participated, was accepted, while the defence version was rejected. According to the accepted prosecution narrative, the complainant, Randhir Singh, was moving his bullocks through a field known as the ‘Chari’ that belonged to the appellants. The appellants questioned him as to why his bullocks had grazed the ‘Chari’. When the complainant denied any wrongdoing, an altercation ensued and the appellants assaulted him with lathis and a spear. The complainant suffered injuries from the lathi blows but managed to escape, raising an alarm as he fled. The appellants pursued him. After he had run a short distance, a group of persons came to his assistance. At that point, the appellants who had arrived earlier also assaulted the complainant and his helpers. The prosecution also claimed, though this aspect was not accepted, that prior to this encounter eight other persons had joined the appellants and together they had assaulted the complainant and his men. In response, counsel for the appellants, Mr Isaacs, argued that the occurrence of 15 October 1949 comprised two distinct incidents. The first incident occurred near the ‘Chari’ field of the appellants; the second took place at some distance away where the complainant was allegedly assaulted by several individuals, including the appellants, who were described as members of an unlawful assembly. All the other persons involved in the second incident had been acquitted, leaving only the appellants convicted. Mr Isaacs contended that there was no evidence of any prior concert or common plan between the appellants and the acquitted persons. Consequently, he submitted that the appellants could not be held liable under Section 34 of the Penal Code, which requires a common intention among participants. He further emphasized that the prosecution case had been largely rejected, with eight of the eleven accused acquitted, and therefore the evidence used to convict the appellants was unreliable as it rested on the testimony concerning the other accused who had been found not guilty.

In this matter, the counsel for the appellants maintained that the assault had taken place suddenly and that there was no evidence to show that it resulted from a pre-arranged plan between the unidentified assailants and the appellants. On that basis, he submitted that the appellants could not be convicted under Section 34 of the Penal Code because the essential element of a common design was absent. To support this position, he cited the Privy Council decision in Mahbub Shah v. King Emperor and the Supreme Court decision in Pandurang v. State of Hyderabad. He argued that, before Section 34 could be invoked, the prosecution must prove the existence of a common intention; merely demonstrating that the appellants shared a similar or parallel intention was insufficient. He further contended that the prosecution’s case had been largely rejected, as eight of the eleven accused had been acquitted, and therefore the evidence relied upon to convict the appellants was unreliable when considered in relation to the other accused. Consequently, he urged that the appellants should not be convicted on the same evidential foundation that had been found wanting for the majority of co-accused.

When the appeal was presented for special leave, the Supreme Court observed that it ordinarily refrains from disturbing the factual findings of the lower courts. The Court emphasized that no substantial material had been placed before it that would justify a departure from the findings of fact arrived at by the trial courts. In keeping with established judicial practice, the Court indicated that the role of the appellate bench is not to re-evaluate the evidence afresh but to intervene only where a clear error or miscarriage of justice is demonstrated, which in this case was not shown.

Having considered the submissions, the Court held that it was unnecessary to revisit the numerous authorities cited by counsel concerning Section 34 of the Penal Code, because the factual matrix established by the lower courts left no doubt that the provisions of Section 34 were applicable. Between the prosecution’s version of events and the defence’s version, the courts below had accepted the prosecution’s narrative as the factual baseline. While it is true that most of the accused other than the three appellants had been acquitted, the prosecution’s version of the occurrence was nevertheless treated as the operative description of the incident. According to that version, the three appellants attacked Randhir Singh in the first incident, inflicting injuries though none were caused by a spear. Randhir Singh fled the scene, pursued by the appellants. Whether he or his companions were subsequently assaulted by a larger crowd in a second incident was deemed irrelevant, because the findings of fact clearly indicated that the three appellants were responsible for the assault in that second episode as well.

The Court concluded that the circumstances demonstrated that the appellants were motivated by a common intention to assault the complainant and his associates, and that this inference was justified by the surrounding facts. The evidence showed that the appellants assaulted the complainant in the first incident, chased him, and continued to assault both the complainant and those who came to his assistance. This pattern of conduct implied that the assault in the second incident was the result of a prior concerted plan. The High Court had found that the common object charged was identical with the common intention, and the Court observed that the same evidence which proved the existence of a common object would also suffice to establish the common intention required under Section 34.

In the present matter, the Court observed that it had been established that an unlawful assembly had taken place. The Court further held that the earlier decision of this Court in Karnail Singh v. State of Punjab, 1954 SC 204 (AIR V 41) (C) together with the observations of Justice Fazl Ali in Lachman Singh v. The State fully covered the factual and legal issues involved in the present case. The Court noted that out of the eleven accused persons, eight had been acquitted, and that this fact could be used to argue that the prosecution witnesses were unreliable. Nevertheless, the Court emphasized that it was the function of the courts of fact to decide whether to accept the prosecution evidence regarding the role played by the appellants in the incident, even in view of the acquittals. The Court stated that the question of the credibility of the witnesses was a matter for the courts of fact to determine on a prima facie basis. The Court also observed that there was nothing unusual in the circumstances of the present case that would lead it to infer that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. While acknowledging that there might be some doubt about the participation of persons other than the appellants, the Court concluded that the involvement of the appellants themselves had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Consequently, the Court dismissed the appeal.