Rishideo Pande 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: 3 February, 1955

Coram: S.R. Das

In this case, the Supreme Court recorded that the matter concerned Rishideo Pande versus the State of Uttar Pradesh, with the decision dated 3 February 1955. The judgment was delivered by Justice S.R. Das. The appellant, Rishideo Pande, together with his brother Ram Lochan Pandey and a third accused, Banslochan, had been found guilty by the Sessions Judge of Ghazipur on 25 February 1954. The conviction was under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code for the murder of a person named Sheomurat, and each convict had been sentenced to death, subject to confirmation by the High Court. All three convicted persons filed appeals before the High Court, and the learned Sessions Judge also made a reference for confirmation of the death sentences. The High Court granted Banslochan the benefit of doubt, rejected the reference against him, and allowed his appeal. In contrast, the High Court dismissed the appeals of Ram Lochan and the appellant, accepted the reference against them, affirmed their convictions, and upheld the death sentences. Consequently, the present appeal before the Supreme Court was filed solely by Rishideo Pande.

The principal contention raised on behalf of the appellant was presented by counsel supporting the appeal, who argued that Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code had been incorrectly applied to the facts of this case. The meaning, scope, and effect of Section 34 have been examined repeatedly by both the Privy Council and this Court. It sufficed to refer to the Court’s recent decision in Pandurang v. State of Hyderabad, pronounced on 3 December 1954, which clarified that the “common intention” required by Section 34 presupposes a prior concert or pre-arranged plan—a meeting of minds before the act. This does not necessitate a long interval between the formation of the common intention and the commission of the act, nor does it require direct evidence of the common intention. The Court noted that in many instances it may be impossible to produce such direct evidence, and that the common intention may be inferred from the surrounding circumstances and the parties’ conduct. Counsel submitted that, on the record, there was no material from which a common intention on the part of Rain Lochan and the appellant to murder Sheomurat could be properly inferred.

The Court observed that there was no dispute regarding several material facts. Firstly, at about one a.m. on the night of either 4 May 1953 or 5 June 1953, two eyewitnesses—Baney Pandey (identified as PW-1) and Subrati (identified as PW-2)—were awakened by the sound of a blow and saw Ram Lochan and the appellant standing near the cot on which the victim, Sheomurat, had been sleeping. Secondly, it was established that Ram Lochan was carrying a “gandasa” while the appellant held a “lathi.” Thirdly, the eyewitnesses reported that Ram Lochan, who was positioned near the head of the cot, was in the act of lifting the gandasa after having delivered a blow with it to the victim’s neck, while the appellant remained at the foot of the cot armed with his lathi.

In this case, the trial court recorded that the appellant stood at the foot of the cot while holding his lathi. The eye-witnesses and the doctor who performed the post-mortem testified that the victim’s neck bore a single incised wound and that there was no evidence of any lathi strike on the body. After a loud cry for help was raised, Ram Lochan and the appellant fled together, as stated by the witnesses Chauthi, Nageswar, Soyambar and Ram Dhari. Both Ram Lochan and the appellant subsequently absconded but later presented themselves before the magistrate after proceedings under sections 87 and 88 of the Criminal Procedure Code had been initiated against them. During the examination under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the appellant repudiated the prosecution’s case in its entirety, asserting that none of the accused had gone to the scene of the occurrence and that he knew nothing about the murder of Sheomurat. The Sessions Judge, having observed the demeanor of the prosecution witnesses, placed confidence in their testimony and held that the facts narrated above were established beyond any doubt. Relying on those findings, the learned Sessions Judge concluded that the relevant question was the nature of the offence committed by the three accused. He observed that although the fatal blow that caused Sheomurat’s death was delivered by Ram Lochan, the circumstance of all three individuals being present at the spot indicated that they had each come there with a pre-planned intention to cause Sheomurat’s death, and that the death occurred in furtherance of that common intention. The Judge noted that Ram Lochan’s possession of a gandasa demonstrated that the other two participants were fully aware of, and shared, his intention to kill Sheomurat. He further stated that it was irrelevant that the lethal strike was inflicted by Ram Lochan alone, because the other two accused merely acted as guards and provided support to Ram Lochan. Consequently, the death was caused in furtherance of the common intention, and all three accused were therefore liable under section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. On appeal to the High Court, no argument was advanced that section 34 had been misapplied. The sole contention raised was that the conviction was unsupported by the weight of the evidence and was legally erroneous. A review of the High Court’s judgment showed that the argument before it was not that a common intention could not be inferred from the established facts, but rather that the evidence used to prove those facts should not have been accepted.

In this case, the High Court had rejected the contention without hesitation and had concurred with the trial Court that both Ram Lochan and the appellant were guilty of murder carried out in furtherance of their common intention to kill Sheomurat. The only point raised before this Court, both in the grounds of appeal and in the oral argument, concerned whether Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code had been misapplied. Counsel for the appellant advanced able arguments on that point, but the Court was not persuaded to adopt a different view of the facts and circumstances. The Court observed that the existence of a shared intention among the accused is, ultimately, a question of fact and must be determined from the evidence. The Court was of the opinion that the factual inference drawn by the Sessions Judge from the record, and subsequently accepted by the High Court, was not improper and that the facts did not admit any innocent explanation. Moreover, no alternative explanation or hypothesis had been suggested by any witness during trial examination, nor had any such line of reasoning been presented in the arguments before this Court. Consequently, the Court was unable to conclude that Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code had been misapplied in the present case. Counsel for the appellant fervently urged the Court to reconsider the propriety of imposing the most severe penalty on the appellant. The Court noted that, although the appellant did not deliver the fatal blow, he had shared the common intention to kill and had taken part in the criminal act by being present at the scene armed with a lathi. Under the law, the appellant therefore bore the same criminal liability as his brother Ram Lochan, who had dealt the fatal blow to the sleeping victim. Accordingly, the sentence imposed on the appellant was to be upheld. The Court added that if any mitigating circumstance existed beyond the record that might warrant clemency, such a matter must be addressed to authorities other than this Court. For the reasons set out above, the Court dismissed the appeal.