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Sanjeev Kumar Gupta v. State of U.P. (now Uttarakhand)

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 507 of 2013)Decided 8 May 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 507 of 2013
Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose · Justice R.K. Agrawal

Background

The appellants were convicted of murder after a group of them, armed with weapons, attacked a group of students (including the eventual deceased) near the cycle stand of a college in Dehradun during a dispute connected to upcoming college elections. The trial court convicted them under Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC (murder by members of an unlawful assembly) and sentenced each to life imprisonment with a fine; the Uttarakhand High Court affirmed the conviction, and the appellants then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the evidence showed the appellants were present at the scene, armed, and shared a common object of stopping the deceased and others from contesting the college elections: enough to establish them as members of an "unlawful assembly" under Section 141 IPC. It rejected the argument that there was no prior common intention to kill, holding that a common intention can form on the spur of the moment, and that the nature of the attack and injuries supported the inference that an intention to kill arose in that moment. The Court upheld the concurrent findings of the trial court and the High Court and dismissed all the connected appeals.

Lesson Learnt

Criminal liability for murder committed by a group (Section 149 IPC) does not require proof that every member individually intended to kill from the outset: if the group shared a common unlawful object and the fatal intention can reasonably be seen to have formed in the heat of the moment, all members can be held liable for the resulting death.

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

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