PRADEEP KUMAWAT Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS criminal appeal has been filed under the proviso to Section 372 Cr.P.C. aggrieved of the judgment dated 19.9.2011, passed by the Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track) No.1, Alwar, in Session Case No.99/2009, whereby the learned trial court has acquitted the accused respondents Rajesh and Bhagwani Devi of offence under section 304 and instead convicted them under Sections 341 and 325/34 IPC. On the issue of sentencing, the benefit of probation under the provisions of Probation of Offenders Act has been granted to accused respondents.

(2.) I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned judgment dated 19.9.2011, passed by the Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track) No.1, Alwar.

(3.) IT is trite that for a conviction under section 304 IPC, the accused has to be found guilty of offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 299 IPC. Section 299 IPC provides that whoever "causes death " by "doing an act " with the "intention of causing death ", or such "bodily injury as is likely to cause death ", or with "the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death ", commits the offence of culpable homicide. Consequently either intention or knowledge of the accused inferred from the act attributed and the circumstances obtaining at the relevant time in central to or conviction under Section 299 and punishment under Section 304 IPC. For the purpose of inferring the intention, the nature of weapon used, the part of the body on which injury has been inflicted, the number of injuries, the genesis of the incident are all important. It is easy to infer intention. But for inferring knowledge of an accused that his act was likely to cause death, it would be necessary to take into consideration as to whether the act of the accused probabilised or ought to have probablised in the mind of the accused about death occurring from his act. In my considered opinion, an injury on the lower leg of a person, in this case of the injured Harbux by a blunt weapon, by itself was incapable of either leading to an inference of intention to cause Harbux's death, or otherwise to the knowledge of the accused that the act contemplated and executed would in all probability cause the death of injured. In this view of the matter, the learned trial court in its impugned judgment dated 19-9-2011 has committed no error either in fact or law to hold that the accused respondents were not guilty of the offence under section 304 IPC, but only under section 325/34 and 341 IPC.