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Sanjay Puran Bagde & Anr. vs. The State of Maharashtra

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 766Decided 28 Jul 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 143 of 2020
Sanjay Kishan Kaul · M.M. Sundresh

Background

In the early hours of 3 November 2015, four men attacked Vilas Babusa Gawande at his home over a personal grudge, allegedly involving an "evil eye" cast on a relative's wife. His wife, an eyewitness, saw two of the four men (Manoj and Puran Bagde) strike her husband with an axe while the two appellants, Sanjay Puran Bagde and Rajratna Bagde, held him down; he died shortly after. The Trial Court convicted the two men who wielded the axe but acquitted the appellants, reasoning that merely holding the victim without striking him did not show a shared intention to kill. On appeal, the High Court reversed the acquittal and convicted the appellants too, leading them to approach the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's reversal, holding that the presence of all four accused at the scene at 3:30 a.m., armed with weapons, and their coordinated roles in the attack, two attacking with an axe while the appellants restrained the victim, demonstrated a clear, pre-planned common intention to kill, not a sudden or spontaneous act. Relying on its own recent precedent (Jasdeep Singh v. State of Punjab), the Court reiterated that Section 34 IPC does not require every participant to physically strike the blow; a shared intention and coordinated participation in the criminal act is enough to make each participant equally liable. The Court found no fault with the eyewitness testimony of the victim's wife and dismissed the appeal.

Lesson Learnt

Under Indian criminal law, a person who actively helps carry out a planned attack, even just by restraining the victim while others strike, can be held equally guilty of murder as the one who delivers the fatal blow, because the law looks at shared intention and coordinated participation, not just who physically caused the injury.

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

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