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So, the requirement for the applicability of section 337 IPC are that the injury to any person, must have been caused by the accused by doing any rash and negligent act. In other words it must be proved that the rash and negligent act of the accused was the proximate cause of injury. There must be direct nexus between injury to the person and rash and negligent act of the accused.

10. In a nutshell to prove the case against the accused the prosecution was under the obligation to prove the following essential ingredients of the offence punishable u/s 279/337 IPC:­

(iii) The rash or negligent act must be the proximate cause of injury of the injured.

22. In the matter of Chaman Lal Vs State AIR 1954, ALL 186, it was observed that Rashness and negligence are not the same things. Mere negligence cannot be construed to mean rashness. There are degrees of negligence and rashness and in order to amount to criminal rashness or criminal negligence, one must find that the rashness has been of such a degree as to amount to taking hazard knowing that the hazard was of such a degree that injury was most likely to be occasioned thereby. The criminality lies in running the risk or doing of such an act with recklessness and indifference to its consequences.

(iii) The rash or negligent act of the accused was the proximate cause of the injury of the injured.

" To impose criminal liability under section 337, Indian Penal Code, it is necessary that the injury should have been the direct result of a rash and negligent act of the accused, and that act must be the proximate and sufficient cause without the intervention of the author's negligence. It must be the causa causans; it is not enough that it may have been the causa sine qua non".