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Mohar Singh v. State of Rajasthan

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 758 of 2015)Decided 11 May 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 758 of 2015
Justice Dipak Misra · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

In 1986, Mohar Singh and three relatives allegedly stopped the victim, Rekh Singh, while he was on his way to get his tubewell engine repaired; the others held him down while Mohar Singh struck him with a lathi (stick), causing a serious head fracture and several other injuries. A trial court convicted only Mohar Singh under Section 307 IPC (the other three were acquitted for want of proof) and sentenced him to five years' rigorous imprisonment plus a fine. The Rajasthan High Court upheld this conviction and sentence in 2014, leading to this appeal before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the victim's testimony natural and trustworthy, and corroborated by both eyewitnesses and medical evidence showing a skull fracture consistent with a lathi blow capable of causing death, so it upheld the conviction under Section 307 IPC. However, the Court noted that nearly three decades had passed, the victim himself appeared in person to say he no longer wished to prosecute, and the parties had executed a village-level compromise (Panchayatnama). Since attempt to murder is a non-compoundable offence, the Court could not accept the compromise outright, but it treated these facts as grounds to show leniency on sentence, reducing the prison term from five years to three years while leaving the fine untouched, and clarifying this reduction should not be treated as a sentencing precedent for Section 307 cases generally.

Lesson Learnt

Even where victim and accused later reconcile, courts cannot simply let a serious, non-compoundable offence like attempted murder go, but genuine remorse, a long passage of time, and a village-level compromise can still influence the length of the sentence, even though they cannot overturn the conviction itself.

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

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