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Arvind Kumar vs State of NCT, Delhi (2023 INSC 622)

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 622Decided 17 Jul 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 2390 of 2010

Background

The appellant, a police constable posted as a guard at a Delhi police station in 1994, was carrying an automatic carbine (SAF) when a duty officer asked him to get a fellow constable to end a long personal phone call on the station's official line. During the ensuing scuffle over the weapon, the SAF got entangled with a chain on the appellant's belt and discharged five rounds, killing the other constable. Initially, only a lesser rash-and-negligence charge was registered, but after the deceased's father alleged the shooting followed a dispute over the appellant's relationship with the duty officer, the case was escalated to murder under Section 302 IPC, and both the trial court and the Delhi High Court convicted the appellant of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that both eyewitnesses present at the scene, including the duty officer herself, consistently supported the defence version that the firing was accidental, and the High Court had already disbelieved the alleged motive (the affair) after finding the relevant witnesses unconvincing. Ballistic expert reports confirmed the weapon could fire simply from being cocked via entanglement with a chain if its safety lever was not engaged, corroborating the accidental-discharge account. The Court held the prosecution had failed to prove either an intention to kill or a knowledge that death was likely, so the conviction for murder could not stand; however, the appellant's failure to keep the weapon's safety lever engaged while approaching another person amounted to gross negligence causing death, meeting the lower threshold under Section 304A IPC (causing death by a rash or negligent act). Since he had already served over eight years, more than the two-year maximum for that offence, his conviction was downgraded and he was ordered released.

Lesson Learnt

A homicide conviction requires the prosecution to actually prove intention or knowledge of likely death, not merely that a death occurred during a confrontation; carelessness with a dangerous weapon, without proof of intent, is punished as negligence, not murder, and courts will re-examine even old convictions where the trial record does not support the higher charge.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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