Incident occurred without premeditation, in a sudden fight, in the heat of passion and upon a sudden quarrel: Top Court reduces murder convict's life sentence to 8 years rigorous imprisonment
Justices B.R. Gavai, Aravind Kumar & Sandeep Mehta [25-04-2024]

Read Order: MOHD. AHSAN v. STATE OF HARYANA [SC- CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 2265 OF 2024]

LE Correspondent

New Delhi, April 26, 2024: The Supreme Court has altered the conviction of the accused-Appellant under Section 302 of the IPC to one under Part I of Section 304 after noting that the incident leading to the death of a man occurred without premeditation, in a sudden fight, in the heat of passion and upon a sudden quarrel.

The facts of the case were that on August 18, 2005, the SHO of Jagadhri Police Station City, namely, Jai Singh (PW-13), received telephonic information about the death of one Vikrant @ Chintu (deceased) who had been admitted in Civil Hospital in an injured state. The medico-legal report of the deceased was obtained from the hospital and the statement of the de-facto complainant (PW-10) was recorded. FIR was registered under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 against the present Appellant. Subsequently, the post mortem of the deceased was conducted wherein it was concluded that the cause of death was shock due to massive haemorrhage which was sufficient to cause death under normal circumstances.

The prosecution case was that on August 17, 2005 the de-facto complainant (PW-10) had been taking food at a Dhaba in the company of PW- 12 when another group of four men including PW11 and the deceased arrived at the same place. To attract the attention of the waiter, the deceased called the waiter by use of the word hello and this gesture irked another customer i.e. the present Appellant who was seated in a corner of the Dhaba, smoking a cigarette. The Appellant initially abused the deceased and a quarrel took place. The Appellant rushed to his car and pulled out a glass bottle which he broke on the bonnet of his car and thereafter proceeded to inflict five injuries on the body of the deceased, due to which the deceased fell to the ground bleeding, after which the Appellant fled from the scene. 

Subsequently, PW-11 and the others rushed the deceased to the hospital where he eventually succumbed to his injuries. The appeal before the Top Court was filed by the appellant accused challenging the judgment of the Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissing the Criminal Appeal preferred by the Appellant and upholding the order of conviction and sentence as recorded by the Sessions Judge.

It was the appellant's case that even if the prosecution case was taken at its face value, it would reveal that the incident occurred out of a sudden fight and thus, the conviction under Section 302 of the IPC would not be tenable and the offence would be required to be brought under Part I or Part II of Section 304 of the IPC.

After extensively going through the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, the 3-Judge Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Aravind Kumar & Justice Sandeep Mehta opined that there was no premeditation. The incident occurred since the appellant believed that the utterances by deceased Vikrant @ Chintu were aimed at him and, therefore, he retaliated by abusing the deceased. This was followed by a heated exchange between them. They grappled out of the building of the Dhaba. Though the witnesses were successful in separating them, the accused-Appellant rushed to his car, pulled out a bottle from the drivers seat side, broke it on the bumper of the car and attacked the deceased.

“It is thus clear that the incident occurred without premeditation, in a sudden fight, in the heat of passion and upon a sudden quarrel. The evidence would also not show that the accused-Appellant had either taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner. We therefore find that the present case would fall under Exception 4 to Section 300 of the IPC”, the Bench said.

Thus, partly allowing the appeal, the Bench altered the conviction of the accused-Appellant under Section 302 of the IPC to one under Part I of Section 304 of the IPC. The Top Court also sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for a period 8 years and a fine of Rs 5,000.