Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Gajanan Ganpat Zalte vs The State Of Maharashtra on 29 May, 2019
Bench: M.R. Shah, A.S. Bopanna
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 432 of 2012
GAJANAN GANPAT ZALTE Appellant(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Respondent(s)
O R D E R
Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied by the judgment and order dated 24th August, 2011 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur in Criminal Appeal No.406 of 1997 by which the High Court has dismissed the said appeal and has confirmed the judgment and order of the Trial Court convicting the appellant-accused for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC, the appellant-accused has preferred the present appeal.
Mr. Abhikalp Pratap Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant has made only one submission that the case of the appellant would fall under Section 304 Part-II or Section 304 Part- I of the IPC. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, there was no intention of the appellant-accused to kill the deceased-Dashrath. It is submitted that in fact there was no prior enmity with the deceased. It is submitted that as such there was quarrel between the accused and the one Sanjay Kolte. It is submitted that in sudden fight in the heat of moment, the appellant had caused the injuries. It is further submitted that even as per Signature Not Verified the Digitally signed by ANITA MALHOTRA Date: 2019.05.31 deposition of PW-7, father of the deceased the appellant- 16:08:37 IST Reason:
accused returned from his home with axe. He asked where Sanjay had 1 gone and stated that he wanted to kill Sanjay. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant has submitted that considering Exception 4 to Section 300 of the IPC, culpable homicide is not amounting to murder and in support of the above submission learned counsel has heavily relied upon the following decisions of this Court in the case of State of Rajasthan v. Santosh Savita (2013) 12 SCC 663; Shivappa Buddappa Kolkar Buddappagol v. State of Karnataka (2004) 13 SCC 168; Rampal Singh v. State of U.P. (2012) 8 SCC 289 and Arjun v. State of Chhattisgarh (2017) 3 SCC 247.
Making the above submissions and relying upon the above decisions and heavily relying upon Exception 4 to Section 300 of the IPC, it is requested to convert the conviction of the appellant from Section 302 IPC to that of Section 304 Part-II or Section 304 Part-I IPC.
The present appeal is vehemently opposed by Shri Nishant Ramakantrao Katneshwarkar, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent-State of Maharashtra. It is submitted that in the present case the first incident of quarrel between the appellant and Sanjay had ended and Sanjay went to his village and the appellant-accused went to his home. It is submitted that thereafter, the appellant again returned from his home with an axe and gave one blow of axe on the head of the deceased and second at his neck by which the Dashrath (deceased) collapsed on the ground and thereafter he succumbed to the injuries. It is submitted that as the accused gave the blow of axe on the vital part of the body i.e. head and neck, the case would not fall under Exception 4 to Section 300 of the IPC. It is submitted that in the aforesaid 2 facts and circumstances when the first episode/incident of quarrel between the accused and Sanjay ended and thereafter the accused went to his home and returned with axe and thereafter caused injury by axe on the vital part of the body of the deceased, explanation fourthly to Section 300 shall be applicable. It is submitted that in the facts and circumstances of the case as rightly held by the Trial Court as well as by the High Court, culpable homicide is murder and thereafter he has been rightly convicted for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC. Making the above submissions and relying upon the case of State of Rajasthan v. Kanhaiya Lal 2019 SCC OnLine SC 519 in Criminal Appeal No.645 of 2019 it is prayed to dismiss the present appeal. Heard learned counsel appearing for the respective parties at length. As observed above, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant-accused has made only one submission that the case of the appellant would fall under Section 304 Part-II or 304 Part-I IPC and that culpable homicide would not amount to murder and has placed reliance heavily on Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC. On the other hand learned counsel for the respondent-State has placed reliance on Explanation Fourthly of Section 300 of IPC and has submitted that in the facts and circumstances of the case, culpable homicide is murder. It has come on record and as per the deposition of PW-7, father of the deceased who is an eye witness that at the time of first incident of quarrel/scuffle between the appellant and Sanjay, the deceased-Dashrath came there and rescued the quarrel between the accused and Sanjay. He sent the appellant to his home and also advised Sanjay to go to his village. He 3 further stated that the accused then returned from his home with an axe and he asked where Sanjay had gone. It is further stated that at that time Dashrath (deceased), PW-7 and his wife were standing on the road. The appellant then gave one blow of axe on the head of the deceased Dashrath and second at his neck after which the Dashrath collapsed on the ground. Therefore, it cannot be said that there was a grave and sudden provocation or the accused caused the injury without pre-meditation, in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel. Therefore, in the facts and circumstance of the case Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC shall not be applicable and/or the same shall not come to the rescue of the appellant. On the contrary, Explanation Fourthly to Section 300 of the IPC shall be applicable. As per Explanation Fourthly to Section 300 of IPC culpable homicide is murder, if the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of cause death or such injury as aforesaid. Applying Explanation Fourthly to the facts of the case on hand, when the appellant first came to his home, thereafter he returned with axe and gave one blow by axe on the vital part of the body i.e. head and also another blow on the neck, the culpable homicide can be said to be murder. Therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the High Court has rightly not accepted the case of the appellant that the case would fall under Section 304 Part-II of the IPC.
4 So far as the decisions of this Court relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellant referred to herein above shall not be applicable to the facts of the case on hand. In the recent decision in the case of Kanhaiya Lal (supra) this Court had an occasion to consider the case of a single blow on the vital part of the body i.e. head and this Court had an occasion to consider whether case would fall under Section 304 Part-I or Section 302 of IPC and considering the earlier decisions of this Court on the point, this Court has confirmed the order passed by the Trial Court convicting the appellant accused under Section 302 IPC by observing that even in a case of a single blow, but on the vital part of the body i.e. head which was sufficient to cause the death. The case would fall under Section 302 of the IPC and not under Section 304 Part-I of the IPC.
In view of the above and for the reasons stated above, we are in complete agreement with the view taken by the High Court. We see no reason to interfere with the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court dismissing the appeal and uphold the conviction of the appellant-accused for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC.
Accordingly, the present appeal stands dismissed.
..............................J. (M.R. SHAH) ..............................J. (A.S.BOPANNA) Dated : 29.05.2019 New Delhi 5 ITEM NO.119 COURT NO.3 SECTION II-A S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS Criminal Appeal No(s). 432/2012 GAJANAN GANPAT ZALTE Appellant(s) VERSUS STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Respondent(s) Date : 29-05-2019 This appeal was called on for hearing today. CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.R. SHAH HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.S. BOPANNA (VACATION BENCH) For Appellant(s) Mr. Abhikalp Pratap Singh,Adv.
Mr. Rahul Chitnis,Adv.
Mr. Chander Shekhar Ashri, AOR For Respondent(s) Mr. Nishant Ramakantrao Katneshwarkar, AOR Mr. Nishant Sharma,Adv.
Mr. Anoop Kandari,Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Heard learned counsel for the parties. The appeal is dismissed in terms of the signed order. Pending application, if any, shall also stand disposed of.
(ANITA MALHOTRA) (RAJINDER KAUR)
COURT MASTER COURT MASTER
(Signed order is placed on the file.)
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