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Guru @ Gurubaran and Others v. State rep. by the Inspector of Police

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 1094Decided 27 Sept 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 1893 of 2010
Justice Deepak Gupta · Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

A dispute arose after a woman's son married without her approval, and a village panchayat (community meeting) was convened to settle related tensions between two families. Before the panchayat could proceed, the accused, including the woman's brother and several relatives, arrived armed with sickles, an iron pipe, and wooden staffs, and attacked the woman and her family, fatally injuring her with a sickle blow to the head. Nine people were convicted at trial for murder or lesser assault offences depending on their role, and five of them appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the main attacker could not claim the benefit of Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC (which reduces murder to culpable homicide for an unplanned fight in sudden passion), because the accused had come armed to what was meant to be a peace-making meeting, showing the attack was not spontaneous, and the fatal blow to the head with a sickle fell squarely within the "fourthly" clause of Section 300 IPC (an act so imminently dangerous it must, in all probability, cause death). His conviction and life sentence were upheld. However, for a second accused who struck only non-fatal blows with an iron pipe causing mere abrasions, the Court held that since the trial court had not invoked common-intention provisions (Section 34/149 IPC), each accused could only be held liable for his own specific act, so his conviction was reduced from murder to the lesser offence of voluntarily causing hurt with a dangerous weapon (Section 324 IPC), with his sentence reduced to time already served. The convictions of the remaining appellants for their respective lesser roles were left undisturbed, and the appeal was dismissed for three of the five appellants while allowed in part for the second accused.

Lesson Learnt

In a group assault, criminal liability is not automatically shared equally by everyone present, unless the prosecution proves and the court applies a "common intention" or "unlawful assembly" provision, each person is legally responsible only for the specific injury their own actions actually caused, which can mean very different outcomes for people in the same incident.

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

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