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Sunil vs. State (NCT of Delhi), with Ravinder vs. State (NCT of Delhi) and Shri Krishan vs. State (NCT of Delhi)

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 840Decided 21 Sept 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 688 of 2011
Hrishikesh Roy · Manoj Misra · J.B. Pardiwala

Background

In 1998, an altercation broke out in a Delhi locality after boys from one family allegedly teased the daughter of another family (Satpal's). The appellants (Sunil, Ravinder and Shri Krishan) along with Babu Ram (Ravinder's father, licensed gun owner) left the scene after threatening to "teach a lesson" to Satpal's side, then reappeared on a rooftop, from where Babu Ram opened indiscriminate fire, killing two bystanders (Anil and Vijay, who had no connection to the original dispute) and injuring 26 others. Babu Ram claimed self-defence, saying a mob had threatened to burn his house, but the trial court and Delhi High Court rejected this after finding the geography of the site made it physically impossible to hit the victims' location from his house's rooftop, and convicted Babu Ram, Sunil, Shri Krishan and Ravinder for murder and attempted murder with the aid of Section 34 IPC (common intention).

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court accepted that Babu Ram's self-defence plea was rightly rejected and that he alone fired the fatal shots, but scrutinised whether the appellants (who never fired a weapon) could be held equally liable for murder merely for having accompanied and verbally exhorted Babu Ram. The Court found the evidence showed the appellants exhorted Babu Ram not to spare "Satpal's supporters" generally, but there was no evidence the two men who actually died were even Satpal's supporters, and witness testimony was inconsistent on whether the exhortations came before or after they were shot, so a "general exhortation" could not establish the specific common intention needed to convict the appellants of murder alongside Babu Ram, whose fatal shots could equally have been his own independent act. However, given the prolonged (20-25 minute) indiscriminate firing that injured 26 bystanders, with the appellants present throughout and actively urging Babu Ram on, the Court held they did share a common intention to commit an act so imminently dangerous it was bound to cause death or grievous injury to someone: sufficient to sustain their conviction for attempted murder (Section 307/34 IPC), even though not for the completed murders. The Court also rejected a technical argument that the appellants' convictions were invalidated because the specific "exhortation" allegation was not separately put to them during their Section 313 CrPC examination, since they had denied the whole prosecution case outright and shown no resulting prejudice. The appeals were therefore partly allowed: murder convictions set aside and the appellants acquitted of that charge, but their conviction and sentence for attempted murder was upheld, with directions to surrender to serve the remaining Section 307/34 sentence.

Lesson Learnt

Being present at a crime scene and generally urging on the main perpetrator is not automatically enough to make a bystander equally guilty of murder for a co-accused's specific act. The law requires proof of a shared, specific intention to cause that particular consequence; but that same conduct can still be enough to convict for the lesser (though still serious) offence of attempted murder, where the person shared a common intention for an inherently dangerous act, even without a fixed target.

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

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