Hari Shankers v. State of U.P.
Background
Four men, including the appellant, were accused of killing Shiv Shanker by gunfire, allegedly in revenge for an earlier dacoity and murder case in which the deceased was an accused. The trial court convicted all four under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC. The High Court acquitted three of the four co-accused on benefit of doubt but upheld the appellant's conviction, since the eyewitness testimony and medical evidence specifically showed the appellant's shot hit the deceased's wrist.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that once all co-accused were acquitted and that acquittal had become final, the appellant could no longer be convicted "with the aid of" Section 34 IPC (common intention), since there was no one left to share that common intention with - following its own precedents in Krishna Govind Patil, Baul, and Maina Singh. The Court then examined the appellant's individual role and found clear ocular and medical evidence that his own shot caused only a wrist injury, not a fatal one. It therefore altered the conviction from murder (Section 302) to voluntarily causing grievous hurt (Section 326 IPC) and reduced the sentence to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment, allowing the appeal to that extent.
Lesson Learnt
When co-accused are acquitted and that acquittal becomes final, a conviction relying solely on "common intention" under Section 34 IPC cannot survive for the remaining accused; the court must instead look at what that person's own individual act actually caused and convict only for that specific offence.