Rajasthan High Court: In a criminal appeal filed by the accused father, against the judgment of conviction passed by the Additional Sessions for the offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) for infliction of fatal blow on his son’s neck with a sharp edged tool, a Division Bench of Vinit Kumar Mathur* and Anuroop Singhi, JJ., partly allowed the appeal observing that in ordinary circumstances, no parent would cause fatal injury to their children, howsoever frustrated or dejected he or she may be. The Court, while setting aside the conviction under Section 302 IPC, held that there was no intention or pre-meditation to cause death. Consequently, the conviction was converted to one under Section 304 Part II IPC and the accused was sentenced to Rigorous Imprisonment for 7 years.
Background
On 29-06-2017 the complainant submitted a written complaint that the accused, his brother-in-law, assaulted his nephew son, the victim, with a Nawala (a sharp-edged tool used by a cobbler) on the back of his neck while he was sleeping. Upon hearing the cries of the injured, the complainant’s sister awoke and raised an alarm, whereupon the accused fled from the spot. The victim was immediately taken to the hospital in a serious condition where he succumbed to his injuries on 23-07-2017. Initially the FIR was registered for the offence under Section 307 IPC. Subsequently, the police filed a charge-sheet against the accused for the offence under Section 302 IPC. The learned Trial Court framed charges which the accused denied. The Trial Court by judgment dated 21-08-2019 convicted the accused for the offence under Section 302 of the IPC and sentenced to imprisonment for life till the remainder of his natural life along with a fine of Rs.50,000. Aggrieved, the accused filed this appeal under Section 374(2) Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’).
Analysis and Decision
The Court considered the submissions of the parties and the entire record, noting that the deceased was the son of the accused. The facts established that the accused inflicted a single injury to his son victim while he was sleeping with him in the house. The Post-Mortem Report certified the cause of death as shock due to spinal cord injury sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. As per all the prosecution witnesses, the accused was a short-tempered person lacking mental balance. At times, he lost control and often beat his children, sometimes for their mistakes and sometimes for no reason whatsoever.
The Court observed that,
“in ordinary circumstances, no parent would cause fatal injury to their children, howsoever frustrated or dejected he or she may be. They will never do something, which may end up in losing their child. In the present case, the accused has though inflicted injury with a Nawala to his son on the neck, but there is no repetition of the blow.”
The Court further observed that,
“there was no intention or pre-meditation on the part of the accused to inflict such an injury to his son, which was likely to cause death in ordinary course of nature.”
The Court noted that the Supreme Court in Gurmukh Singh v. State of Haryana, (2009) 15 SCC 635, had held that a conviction under Section 302 IPC was difficult to maintain when the incident happened at the spur of the moment, involved a single lathi blow, and was without any pre-arranged plan or previous enmity. The Supreme Court had further illustrated certain factors required to be taken into consideration before awarding appropriate sentence to the accused like motive or previous enmity, whether the incident had taken place on the spur of the moment, intention/knowledge of the accused while inflicting the blow or injury, whether the death ensued instantaneously or the victim died after several days, the gravity, dimension and nature of injury, whether the injury was caused without premeditation in a sudden fight, the nature and size of weapon used for inflicting the injury and the force with which the blow was inflicted, the criminal background and adverse history of the accused, whether the injury inflicted was not sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death but the death was because of shock, incident occurred within the family members or close relations, etc.
The Court observed that the accused did not have any enmity with his son and there was no pre-meditation for inflicting fatal injury. Since the accused was a person of unstable mind, he caused injury upon his son.
The Court partly allowed the criminal appeal, converting the conviction of the accused from Section 302 of the IPC to one under Section 304 Part II IPC, sentencing him to suffer Rigorous Imprisonment for 7 years, while maintaining the fine. The accused was held entitled to the benefit of Section 428 of the CrPC.
[Laxman Das v. State, D.B. Criminal Appeal (Db) No. 274/2019, decided on 03-10-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Vinit Kumar Mathur
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Appellant: Kaushal Sharma, Advocate
For the Respondent: Rajesh Bhati, PP
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