High Court of Allahabad

Ajai Kumar Chauhan Vs. State of U.P.

MANU/UP/1814/2018

03.05.2018

Criminal

Heat of passion requires that there must be no time for the passions to cool down

The Appellant has filed the present appeal against his conviction and sentence passed by Additional Sessions Judge, convicting him under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and awarding sentence of imprisonment for life, along with fine of Rs. 5,000. Additional Sessions Judge by the impugned judgment found that prosecution has perfectly proved the charges against the Appellant. The incident is fully corroborated with the medical evidence. The accused is a young man of 21 years and was a student of B.Sc. Rajeev Kumar (Deceased) was also a student, who was brutally stabbed by the accused. Due to the injuries caused by the accused, he died after ten hours of the incident. The site of injury shows that, the attack was made with an intention to cause death. The injuries were sufficient to cause death in ordinary course. Thus, the Appellant has caused murder of deceased.

FIR was promptly lodged. From the statements of the witnesses of fact, date, time and place of occurrence are fully proved. In Rampal Singh v. State of U.P., held that, where the act committed is done with the clear intention to kill the other person, it will be a murder within the meaning of Section 300 of the IPC and punishable under Section 302 of the IPC but where the act is done on grave and sudden provocation which is not sought or voluntarily provoked by the offender himself, the offence would fall under the Exceptions to Section 300 of the IPC and is punishable under Section 304 of the IPC. Another fine tool which would help in determining such matters is the extent of brutality or cruelty with which such an offence is committed.

In State of M.P. v. Shivshankar, held that help of Exception 4 can be invoked if death is caused (a) without premeditation; (b) in a sudden fight; (c) without the offender's having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner; and (d) the fight must have been with the person killed. To bring a case within Exception 4 all the ingredients mentioned in it must be found. It is to be noted that the 'fight' occurring in Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC is not defined in IPC. It takes two to make a fight. Heat of passion requires that there must be no time for the passions to cool down and in this case, the parties have worked themselves into a fury on account of the verbal altercation in the beginning. A fight is a combat between two and more persons whether with or without weapons. It is not possible to enunciate any general rule as to what shall be deemed to be a sudden quarrel. It is a question of fact and whether a quarrel is sudden or not must necessarily depend upon the proved facts of each case.

According to counsel for the Appellant, merely having a knife does not show that, it was a pre-meditation for causing murder of deceased. In the present case, it has come in the evidence that, the Appellant had called deceased from the roof and after 3 - 4 minutes, cries of deceased were heard by the witnesses and they went on the spot and found that, a scuffle was going on between deceased and the Appellant. Thus, the Appellant had called deceased and caused knife injuries. The site of injuries is the chest of the body, which shows that, intention was to cause death. During this period, if deceased scuffled with the Appellant to save him then no benefit can be given of the own wrong of the Appellant to him. In the facts of the case, Exception 4 of Section 300 of IPC is not attracted in this case. Appeal dismissed.

Relevant

State of M.P. vs. Shivshankar MANU/SC/0820/2014
, Rampal Singh v. State of U.P., MANU/SC/0598/2012
: (2012) 8 SCC 289

Tags : Conviction Validity Exception Benefit

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