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Sankath Prasad v. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2020 INSC 28Decided 10 Jan 2020
Criminal Appeal No. 50 of 2020
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice Hrishikesh Roy

Background

In 1985, during an altercation over the excavation of a mound on disputed land, the appellant brought out a country-made pistol intending to shoot the complainant. The complainant's son intervened and was shot instead, dying from the injury. The appellant was convicted of murder under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment, a conviction upheld by the High Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court accepted the established facts, that the appellant caused the death, but found that the incident arose suddenly, in the heat of an unplanned altercation over the mound-digging dispute, rather than from any premeditated plan to kill. On this basis, it converted the conviction from murder (Section 302 IPC) to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 Part I IPC), and reduced the sentence to ten years' imprisonment.

Lesson Learnt

A killing that happens in the heat of a sudden, unplanned quarrel, without advance planning, can be treated by courts as culpable homicide rather than murder, significantly reducing the punishment even though the act caused death.

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

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