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The State of Uttar Pradesh vs Subhash @ Pappu

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 382Decided 1 Apr 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 436 of 2022
M.R. Shah · B.V. Nagarathna

Background

In 1980, a group of six to seven people, including the respondent Subhash @ Pappu, allegedly attacked a shopkeeper's servant, Bengali, with a knife and a hockey stick after he refused to give them sugar and kerosene oil without a ration card. Bengali gave a dying declaration naming Pappu as having hit him with a hockey stick, and later died of the injuries after about a month. The Trial Court convicted Subhash @ Pappu for murder and rioting, but the Allahabad High Court acquitted him, reasoning that the dying declaration did not attribute the fatal knife blow to him specifically and that he had not been separately charged for the vicarious liability of an "unlawful assembly" offence.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court partly allowed the State's appeal, holding that the dying declaration reliably established Subhash @ Pappu's presence as part of an armed unlawful assembly of six to seven persons who together attacked the deceased, even though he personally used only a hockey stick and not the knife. Relying on Section 149 IPC (constructive liability for the acts of an unlawful assembly's members) and Section 464 CrPC (a defective or omitted charge does not invalidate a conviction unless it causes real prejudice), the Court held that the ingredients of joint/constructive liability were implicit in the charges actually framed, so the accused could still be held liable for the group's fatal act. However, given the 30-day gap between injury and death (from septicemia), the Court modified the conviction from murder (Section 302) down to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 Part I) read with Section 149, alongside upholding the conviction under Section 148 (rioting armed with a deadly weapon) and sentenced him to ten years' rigorous imprisonment.

Lesson Learnt

If you join an armed group that collectively attacks someone, you can be held criminally responsible for the group's most serious act (even one committed by someone else in the group) under the law of unlawful assembly: a minor defect in how the criminal charge was worded will not save you unless you can show it caused you real unfairness in your defence.

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

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