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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on November 3, 2023 said that it is not necessary to assign a specific role to each accused in a case of unlawful assembly. However, non explanation of injuries to the accused in a case of a free fight could create doubt in the case of prosecution, said the court.

The apex court converted conviction of two men from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder after finding that the prosecution had not been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the unlawful assembly had an intention to cause the death of the deceased. 

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, B V Nagarathna and Prashant Kumar Mishra granted appellants Parshuram and Jalim Singh benefit of doubt and modified their conviction from Section 302 to Section 304 Part II of the IPC and accordingly reduced their sentence from life imprisonment to seven years jail term.

Going by the evidence of one Chironji, the first informant, and one Ramhet, the bench said that it was clear that the present appellants were members of the unlawful assembly. 

"No doubt that there is no specific role attributed to the present appellants of assaulting the deceased Madan. However, since the appellants were members of the unlawful assembly, in view of the law laid down by this Court in the Constitution bench in the case of Masalti Vs State of UP (1964), it is not necessary that such a person, for being convicted, must have actually assaulted the deceased," the bench said.

However, the court noted that the witnesses were interested witnesses and the injuries sustained by three accused persons were not at all explained. The trial court and the high court have not considered this aspect of the matter, it pointed out.

"Non-explanation of injuries on the persons of the accused would create a doubt, as to, whether, the prosecution has brought on record the real genesis of the incident or not. Undisputedly, a cross case was also registered against the complainant party for the injuries sustained by the accused persons," the bench said.

The court also took into consideration the defence taken by the accused persons that when they were coming back from the Police Station, it was the complainant party that started assaulting them resulting in a free fight in which the persons from both sides received injuries, and Madan died.

"From the material placed on record, it is also not clear as to whether the common object of the unlawful assembly was to cause the death of the deceased or not. The entire incident arose on account of the happening on a day prior to the day of occurrence of the present incident, i.e. the buffalo of the complainant party spoiling the taparia (shed) built by accused Jalim Singh," the bench said. 

"It is quite possible that the accused persons did not have an intention to cause death of anybody from the complainant party. It is possible that the accused persons only assembled to teach a lesson to the complainant party on account of the buffalo from their party damaging the taparia of the accused Jalim Singh," the bench said, granting the benefit of doubt to the appellants.

In the case, the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2018 upheld the trial court of Shivpuri's 2005 judgment of conviction and sentence of life term awarded to seven persons in the FIR lodged in October 2001.

Case Title: Parshuram Vs State of MP