Wazir Singh vs State Of Punjab

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

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 10 May, 1956

Coram: Bhagwati, J.

In this appeal, which was granted special leave, the Court confined its review solely to the question of the sentence imposed on the accused. The appellant, together with an individual named Inder Singh and four other persons, had been charged under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code for the murder of a man identified as Sohan Singh. The trial court acquitted the four other accused, while it convicted the appellant and Inder Singh of the offence with which they had been charged. The learned Sessions Judge at Ferozepore, after finding both of them guilty, sentenced each of them to death, subject to confirmation by the High Court. Upon hearing the reference for confirmation, the High Court upheld the convictions and the death sentence imposed on the appellant, but it reduced Inder Singh’s punishment to transportation for life. Both the appellant and Inder Singh were reported to have been armed with rifles and were alleged to have discharged those rifles at a person named Bishan Singh, who was the intended target of the attack. The two lower courts concluded that the appellant and Inder Singh shared a common intention to kill Bishan Singh. During the incident, Bishan Singh and Sohan Singh were seated together on the same cot when the rifles were aimed at them, after which both men attempted to flee. Bishan Singh managed to hide behind a kikar tree, whereas Sohan Singh was struck by the bullets and sustained injuries.

The prosecution evidence described four distinct gunshot injuries inflicted upon Sohan Singh, detailing their locations, dimensions and the nature of the wounds. The first injury was a gunshot wound measuring two-fifths of an inch by two-fifths of an inch on the left buttock in the mid-scapular line, three inches below the iliac crest. The second injury measured three inches by three inches, with clotted blood, on the right trochanteric area just below the anterior iliac spine. The third injury measured one-half inch by one-half inch on the outer border of the right lower forearm, one and a half inches above the wrist. The fourth injury measured three inches by three inches on the inner front aspect of the right forearm, half an inch above injury number three. Injuries one and two were intercommunicated, as were injuries three and four, and the court found that injuries one and two were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. In contrast, injuries three and four were limited to the right forearm and were considered of a minor character. The Sessions Judge convicted both the appellant and Inder Singh under Section 302 read with Section 34, concluding that they acted in furtherance of a common intention to cause the death of Bishan Singh. He further observed that the injuries sustained by the deceased were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. He added that, given the circumstances, each accused who fired the 303 bullets from their rifles must be presumed to have intended to cause the victim’s death. The

The High Court, on appeal, concluded that the appellant was the individual who discharged the shot that struck Sohan Singh, resulting in the injury recorded by the doctor and ultimately causing his death; the court held that the prosecution had established the case against him and therefore found no basis to disturb the sentence imposed by the learned Sessions Judge. After a detailed review of the evidence presented by counsel for the appellant, the Court found no material to demonstrate that the appellant was responsible for injuries numbered 1 and 2, the injuries that directly caused the deceased’s death. The record only showed that the appellant fired the first bullet, after which the deceased fell to the ground, and that Inder Singh fired a second bullet which also caused injury. No evidence was offered to link any specific injury to either shot, and consequently it could not be said that the appellant inflicted injuries 1 and 2, a prerequisite for attaching liability for the murder offence. The conviction for murder rested solely on the application of Section 34 of the Penal Code, which treats participants in a common intention as equally responsible. Counsel for the appellant argued that Section 34 could not be invoked by the prosecution because, although a person may be guilty of an offence under Section 301 of the Penal Code on the basis of his own act, he cannot be held constructively liable for that offence where it cannot be shown that he performed the particular act constituting the offence. Accordingly, if the appellant could not be shown to have caused injuries 1 and 2, he could not be held liable for the murder of Sohan Singh merely because he shared with Inder Singh a common intention to kill Bishan Singh, an intention that incidentally resulted in the death of Sohan Singh. In other words, the common intention to kill Bishan Singh could not, by operation of Section 301, be transferred to render the appellant guilty of murdering Sohan Singh, since there was no joint intention between the accused to murder Sohan Singh. This line of reasoning raises a significant question concerning the applicability of Section 34 to offences that fall within the ambit of Section 301 of the Penal Code.

In this case the court observed that accepting the appellant’s argument would not materially alter the outcome, because the conduct attributed to the appellant clearly falls within Section 326 of the Penal Code. That provision commands a punishment of transportation for life, and the court considered such a sentence to be appropriate given the facts, even though the appellant had been found guilty of the offence punishable under Section 326. The court further noted that the same ultimate result would be reached even if the conviction were to remain under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code. The record did not contain any evidence that conclusively showed the appellant as the person who inflicted the first and second injuries on the deceased. Consequently, where there is genuine doubt as to which of the two accused caused the fatal wounds, the court could not prefer one over the other. Both the appellant and Inder Singh were described as henchmen of Harbans Singh, and each participated in the same violent act; therefore, both were equally responsible for the crime. Since Inder Singh had been sentenced to transportation for life, the court found a comparable reason to impose the same sentence upon the appellant. Accordingly, the court held that there was no justification for upholding the death sentence imposed by the learned Sessions Judge. The High Court should not have drawn a distinction between the appellant and Inder Singh, and should have awarded the appellant the lesser penalty of life imprisonment. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed in part, and the death sentence awarded by the Sessions Judge and confirmed by the High Court was reduced to transportation for life. The conviction of the appellant under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code was left intact.