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Emperor v. Sardarkhan Jaridkhan.

Bombay High Court

Aug 24, 1916

Judgment

Subsequent
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Factual and Procedural Background

The opinion, delivered by Beaman, J., records that the accused (referred to as accused No. 1, a young man of about 17 or 18) and accused No. 2 (about seven years older and residing with accused No. 1 and his father) were involved in an incident arising after the deceased was discharged from a mill following a quarrel with the accused's father. The deceased allegedly re-entered the mill and threatened accused No. 1. The accused(s) armed themselves with sticks and went out with the stated object of driving the deceased off the mill premises or, as implied by the Sessions Judge, to assault him. They encountered the deceased sitting with his back towards them; accused No. 1 struck a sudden, violent blow to the back of the deceased's head with a stick about three feet long, which had iron rings and was about an inch in diameter. Medical evidence showed the blow resulted in death within a few hours.

The learned Sessions Judge originally reached a conclusion (implicit in the judgment) that supported a finding of murder. The appeal court (Beaman, J., writing for the court) was called upon to decide whether the killing amounted to murder under the 3rd clause of section 300 of the relevant penal code, or whether it should be reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (section 304). The appellate court altered the conviction and sentence, as described below.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the killing in the circumstances described amounts to murder under clause 3 of section 300 (i.e., where death is caused by an act done "with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person, and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death").
If not murder under section 300 clause 3, whether the offence is properly characterised as culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 304 (and, if so, what punishment is appropriate).

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

Mr. Thakor, appearing for the accused, did not contest the essential fact of the killing but pressed the possibility that the fatal blow may have been struck by accused No. 2 rather than accused No. 1.

The opinion does not set out any detailed prosecutorial submissions or further defence arguments beyond the point raised by Mr. Thakor.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court focused on whether the requisite intention for murder under clause 3 of section 300 could be inferred from the facts. The analysis proceeded as follows:

The court acknowledged that determining intention from a single fatal blow is "a nice and difficult question," particularly when the blow may have been struck under the influence of passion.
The Sessions Judge had inferred intention from (a) the extent of the injury and (b) the nature of the weapon used (a three-foot stick with iron rings). The appellate court accepted that this inferential method is commonly applied by judges and often represents the "right and logical course."
However, the court observed a contrast between judicial inferential reasoning and juries' tendencies: juries are described as more disposed to consider surrounding circumstances liberally and, where possible, to reduce the offence by imputing a lesser intention despite the character of the injury and weapon.
The court emphasized particular contextual factors that warranted a more lenient view in this case: the weapon, although dangerous, is commonly carried in the locality in everyday field work; the blow appears to have been a single sudden strike; the accused was young and his mind "could not have been very clear" at the moment; and it was possible the blow exceeded the degree of violence the offender actually intended to inflict.
On these grounds alone (the court expressly limits its leniency to these circumstances), the appellate court found it reasonable to treat the matter more in the manner a jury might — permitting a less strict inferential approach to the accused's intent than that adopted by the Sessions Judge.
The court warned against "loose applications" of inferential reasoning that would give an overly liberal extension to section 300(3), emphasizing that every case must be decided on its own facts.
Applying this analysis to the present facts, the court concluded that the killing could properly be brought under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) rather than section 302 (murder), specifically under the second part of section 304.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The court altered the conviction from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under the second part of section 304 and directed that the prisoner be sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment.

Implications and direct effects:

The accused's conviction was reduced from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (section 304, second part).
The sentence imposed on the accused is five years' rigorous imprisonment.
The court expressly considered that a sentence of transportation for life would have been disproportionate to the criminality found by the appellate court.
The opinion cautions that its reasoning should not encourage overly liberal or loose inferential extensions of section 300(3); every case must be assessed on its own facts. The opinion does not purport to establish a general new legal principle beyond its factual application in this instance.

Conviction and sentence altered.

Show all summary ...

Beaman, J.:— The accused's father had a quarrel with the deceased as a result of which the deceased was discharged from the mill. The evidence is that he entered the mill after this and threatened the accused, who is a young man of about seventeen or eighteen. The accused appears to have lost his temper, rushed out and brought two sticks one of which he gave to the accused No. 2, who is seven years older than accused No. 1 and who resides with him and his father. Accused Nos. 1 and 2 immediately went out with the object of driving the deceased off the mill premises as they say, or, as is implied in the finding of the learned Sessions Judge, assaulting him. Unfortunately, the two accused came upon the deceased sitting with his back towards them just outside the weaving shed, and the evidence is that the accused, being armed with a stick about three feet long having iron rings and about an inch in diameter, suddenly struck the deceased a violent blow on the back of the head which, as the medical evidence shows, resulted in death within a few hours.

Mr. Thakor on behalf of the accused has not disputed the substantial fact of the killing, though he has pressed upon us a consideration of the possibility at least of the fatal blow having been struck by the accused No. 2. We do not see any reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusion reached by the learned Sessions Judge upon this point.

We have, therefore, only to consider whether the killing in such circumstances amounts to murder or can be reduced to the lesser offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. If murder, it can only be so under the 3rd clause of section 300 which enacts that culpable homicide is murder if the death is caused by an act done “with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person, and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.” Now where death is caused by a single blow, as is the case here, struck probably under the influence of passion, it must always be a nice and difficult question to determine the precise intention of the offender. Doubtless the learned Sessions Judge has followed what in a majority of cases—we think we must concede—to be the right and logical course. He has inferred the intention, that is to say, from the extent of the injury and the nature of the weapon used. On the other hand, where cases of this kind are tried by Jury, Juries are much more disposed to take a liberal and less logical view and to look at all the surrounding circumstances with the object, if possible, of reducing the offence and so, notwithstanding the character of the injury and the nature of the weapon, imputing a lesser intention to the accused. Where, as we began by saying, death is caused by a single blow, it is always much more difficult to be absolutely certain what degree of bodily injury the offender intended, particularly where the weapon used, although a very dangerous weapon, is one which is in the hands of so many people in that part of the country every day of their lives when they go about their ordinary field business. It is upon this ground—and upon this ground alone—that we are disposed to take a more lenient view of the offence committed by the accused than that which the learned Sessions Judge took. After all it must, in a case of this kind, be a matter of inference and nothing more, and while admitting that the inferential processes of the learned Judge are in accordance with what we conceive to be the common and best mode of administering this branch of criminal justice, there may be exceptional cases and exceptional circumstances which would warrant us, sitting here as Judges of final appeal, in taking what we have said might be a Jury's rather than Judge's point of view. And if looking at the case thus, we feel that it might not unreasonably be brought within the lesser offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, while even in the opinion of the Sessions Judge the actual degree of criminality belongs more properly to that than to the offence of murder, we do not think that we are really stretching the law at all by adopting a less strict mode of inferential reasoning. We feel that this is a case in which the sentence of transportation for life would in any event be out of proportion to the real criminality of the accused's act.

That being so, we find the less difficulty in coming to the conclusion that it is possible the blow he struck exceeded in violence the injury he had in view at the moment of striking it. His mind could not have been very clear and it is hard to say that he could have had any definite intention of any kind at the moment. But in saying this, we do not wish to encourage loose applications of such inferential processes giving too liberal an extension to the provisions of section 300, clause 3. Every case must be dealt with on its own facts, and this case is, we think, one which will allow us so far to agree with the learned pleader of the prisoner as to hold that the killing here can properly and legally be brought under section 304 rather than section 302.

We shall, therefore, alter the conviction from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under the second part of section 304 and direct that the prisoner be sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment.