BUTA RAM Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BAIL has been pressed for the petitioners on the premises that the act complained of does not fall squarely within the ambit of Section 307, Indian Penal Code. Admittedly, the petitioners are liquor licensees and it is alleged that at their liquor vends liquor samples were taken from the liquor meant for sale. The chemical analysis of those samples indicated that there was pyridine as one of its constituents. The Chemical Examiner termed them as unfit for human consumption as also injurious for health. Since the petitioners were alleged to be found keeping liquor unfit for human consumption, they stand arrested for the offence under Section 307, Indian Penal Code, and lesser offences, with which we are not concerned for the moment.

(2.) ILLUSTRATION (d) given out under Section 307, Indian Penal Code is to the following effect: A, intending to murder Z, by poison, purchases poison and mixes the same with food which remains in A's keeping; A has not yet committed the offence defined in this section. A places the food on 27s table or delivers it to Z's servants to place it on Z's table. A has committed the offence defined in this section. Whereas Mr. Sibal, learned Counsel for the petitioners, contends that mere mixing of pyridine in the liquor bottles yet kept in the petitioners' keeping would not make it an attempt to murder, the learned District Attorney for the State of Haryana contends that its placement in the shop for delivery to the wary customer makes it squarely fall within the ambit of the said section.

(3.) IT is patent that the dividing line is very thin. There is a catena of precedents defining an attempt to murder. The broad outline thereof is that if the accused has done what he could do with such intention or knowledge and under such circumstances that if he by that act caused the death, he would be guilty for the murderous assault under Section 307, Indian Penal Code, but if something had yet to be done, the act or omission of the accused would be at the preparatory stage and not tantamount to an attempt to murder. Keeping apart the sentimentality which stands generated by the press reports that a large scale of adulteration of liquor, manufactured and sold in the State of Haryana, has led to numerous innocent deaths, it would be safe not to express any further opinion on the merits of the case at hand. Since for the purposes of this petition, it stands undisputed that the liquor containing pyridine was available for being sold to the public at large at the liquor vends of the petitioners, there remained nothing further to be done except its handing over to a prospective customer, and the act would be an attempt to murder within the meaning of Section 307, I. P. C. The question still remains whether pyridine is poison so as to squarely fall within the ambit of the illustration quoted above. In Webster's New International Dictionary, pyridine has been defined: Pyridine: A colourless liquid nitrogenous base, C5h5n, of pungent odour, obtained in the distillation of bone oil, coal tar, etc. and by the decomposition of certain alkaloids. It is the parent of many organic compounds, as nicotine. It is used in denaturing alcohol, as a solvent, as a germicide, as a remedy for asthma, etc. Structurally, it may be considered as benzene in which one CH group has been replaced by N.