Hukum Singh And Others vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 165 of 1960

Decision Date: 28 March, 1961

Coram: Raghubar Dayal

In the matter of Hukum Singh and Others versus the State of Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 28 March 1961, with Justice Raghubar Dayal authoring the opinion and forming the bench. The petitioners were identified as Hukum Singh and others, while the respondent was the State of Uttar Pradesh. The bench composition listed Justice Raghubar Dayal, Justice Subbarao K. Dayal, and Justice Raghubar Dayal again, reflecting the reporting style of the decision. The case is reported in the law reports as 1961 AIR 1541, 1962 SCR (1) 601, and cited subsequently as R 1977 SC1756 (11). The relevant statutory provision discussed was Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code (Act 45 of 1860).

The headnote records that the appellants, one of whom carried a hatchet and the others carried lathis, were engaged in criminal trespass while attempting to move two loaded carts through the field of a person identified as “H”. The appellants were prevented by H and his supporters from entering the field, and the dispute allegedly led to the death of H. The appellants claimed that after H protested, they requested permission to cross the remaining small portion of the field to reach the public passage, and that they were attacked, prompting them to act in self‑defence. Their defence further asserted that H’s right of private defence of property ceased because the trespass had ended when the appellants expressed their intention to leave, thereby terminating the unlawful assembly and its common object, and that they should not be held liable for the acts of another.

The Court held that a criminal trespass does not terminate simply because the trespasser expresses regret or seeks permission to proceed; the aggrieved party retains the right to prevent any further trespass, and the trespasser must obey the directions of the aggrieved party regardless of the patience required. The Court also observed that the presence of individuals armed with lathis and a hatchet, together with an agreement to use those weapons if thwarted, demonstrated a preparedness to employ violence in pursuit of a common object, and consequently the parties must have known that such conduct could cause grievous injury, potentially resulting in death.

The judgment arose from Criminal Appeal No. 165 of 1960, filed by special leave against the order dated 19 December 1958 of the Allahabad High Court in Criminal Appeal No. 1010 of 1956, which had dismissed the appellants’ appeal and affirmed their convictions for several offences, including one under Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code, as pronounced by the Sessions Judge of Saharanpur. Counsel for the appellants were identified as Jai Gopal Sethi, C. L. Sareen, and R. L. Kohli.

C. Mathur and C. P. Lal appeared for the respondent. The judgment was pronounced on 28 March 1961 by Justice Raghubar Dayal. The present appeal, granted by special leave, was filed by four accused persons who challenged the order of the Allahabad High Court that had dismissed their own appeal and had affirmed their convictions for several offences, including an offence punishable under section 302 read with section 149 of the Indian Penal Code, as recorded by the Sessions Judge of Saharanpur.

The factual background narrated by the court described that the appellants, together with three other individuals, had forcibly taken two carts loaded with sugarcane from the field belonging to Suraj Bhan and had attempted to move the carts through the adjoining field of a man named Harphool. The distance to be covered was approximately one and a half furlongs, after which the carts were to reach a public passage that ran alongside Harphool’s field. While the carts were being moved, Harphool objected to the conduct of the appellants’ party, asserting that the movement caused damage to his wheat and gram crops. In response, the appellants beat Harphool and other persons who came to his assistance. One of the appellants, Ram Chandar, was armed with a hatchet (kulhari) and the remaining participants were armed with lathis. Harphool and his companions struck back in self‑defence. The violence resulted in Harphool’s death owing to the injuries he sustained.

The appellants admitted that they had indeed taken the carts through Harphool’s field. They claimed that, when Harphool protested, they asked to be excused, promised not to use the field again for such transport, and pleaded that the carts be allowed to cross only the small remaining portion of the field before reaching the public passage. According to their version, despite this apparently meek conduct, Harphool and his helpers attacked them, forcing the appellants to retaliate in self‑defence.

Both the learned Sessions Judge and the learned judges of the High Court arrived at identical findings of fact. They held that (i) no legal passage existed through or along the boundary of Harphool’s field; (ii) when the carts were near the public passage and Harphool raised his protest, the appellants’ party initiated the attack; and (iii) the appellants’ party possessed no right of private defence of person. Instead, the court concluded that the appellants had formed an unlawful assembly with the common object of committing criminal trespass over Harphool’s field and of employing force, even to the extent of causing death, should they be prevented from completing the trespass. On that basis, the appellants were convicted of the various offences charged against them.

Mr Sethi, counsel for the appellants, advanced four specific contentions. First, he argued that any right of private defence of property that Harphool might have possessed against the offence of criminal trespass would have ceased once the trespass itself ended or once the trespassers indicated an intention to stop the trespass. Second, he maintained that if one member of the rioting group caused an injury, the liability of the other members under section 149 required that the injury be inflicted in the prosecution of the common object. Third, he contended that an assembly ceases to be unlawful after the common object has been fulfilled, and that only the individual who actually committed a later criminal act should be held liable for that act. Fourth, he asserted that the High Court had misdirected itself by drawing certain inferences from the facts that had been found.

The Court examined the four contentions raised by the appellant. It observed that the first three contentions rested on the assumption that the criminal trespass being committed by the appellant’s party had ceased when Harphool allegedly prevented the trespass and that Harphool was the initiator of the attack. The Court noted that the High Court had never recorded any finding to support that assumption. The factual record showed that the two carts remained inside Harphool’s field at the time of the incident; they had not reached the public passage and were situated several yards within the boundary of the field. Consequently, the criminal trespass had not terminated, and Harphool retained the right to stop the appellant’s party from continuing the trespass for the remaining short distance to the public way. Although the appellant’s party had to leave the field and could not do so without committing further trespass, that necessity did not give them any entitlement to insist on persisting with the trespass. They were required to obey Harphool’s directions, no matter how much patience was needed, even if they were not permitted to move in any direction to exit the field. The Court added that, had Harphool actually started the attack under the circumstances alleged by the appellants, a case could perhaps be made that he acted unreasonably by resorting to force instead of seeking assistance from public authorities, thereby losing any right of private defence of property against the trespass. However, the Court concluded that the three abstract legal propositions quoted by the appellant did not arise in the present facts. Regarding the fourth contention, the Court rejected the appellant’s argument that the High Court’s view of a common object to force their way through the fields, using lethal force if necessary, was incorrect. The Court pointed out that the site plan, affirmed by the lower courts, demonstrated that the appellant’s party could have taken a shorter northern route from Suraj Bhan’s sugarcane field to the same public passage, thereby trespassing only one field belonging to a member of their own community, rather than passing through several Saini fields, including Harphool’s.

The Court observed that the appellants had chosen to pass their carts through only one field that belonged to a member of their own Sandal Rajput community, while the remaining fields on the chosen route were owned by Suraj Bhan. The appellants could have taken a shorter passage by moving northward from Suraj Bhan’s sugarcane field, which would have required them to traverse only a single field before reaching the public pathway. Instead, they deliberately selected a longer route that forced them to move through the fields of several Saini landowners, including the field of Harphool. The Court found that this choice could not be justified, because it was clear that traveling through those additional fields would inevitably cause damage to the crops growing there. Such damage, the Court noted, would naturally provoke protests from the owners of the affected fields. It was foreseeable that some owners might object to the passage of the carts and, unless they were prepared to travel back to their own fields, would be forced to confront the appellants on their own land. The Court recognized that such confrontations were likely to lead to clashes and to the use of violence. The objectors, however, were not expected to be prepared for the kind of force that the appellants’ party was ready to employ. The appellants’ party consisted of a number of individuals, one of whom was armed with a hatchet, while the others were armed with lathis. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the appellants were prepared to use force against any objector in order to achieve their goal of bringing the carts to the public pathway by a shortcut. The northern route, while shorter to the public passage, required a longer stretch of the public passage to be covered before reaching the spot where the incident occurred, making it overall longer than the westerly route through the field that the appellants had actually taken. The presence of armed individuals and their agreement to employ those weapons if thwarted demonstrated that they were prepared to use violence in pursuit of their common objective, and that they understood that such conduct could result in serious injury or death to someone who resisted.

The Court recorded that Harphool suffered seven distinct injuries, including an incised, bone‑deep wound on the right side of his head and a contused, bone‑deep wound on the left side of his head. He died within twenty‑four hours of receiving those injuries. The death was attributed to shock and haemorrhage caused by the injuries to the skull and brain resulting from the head wounds. The Court held that the concerted acts of the members of the appellants’ party that led to Harphool’s death constituted the offence of murder. In view of the findings and reasoning set out above, the Court found no merit in the appeal. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed.