Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

3. I am of opinion that the accused did cause the death of Rajalakshmi and is guilty of her murder. The law on the subject is contained in Sections 299 to 301 of the Indian Penal Code, and the whole question is whether it can properly be said that the accused caused the death of the girl, in tie ordinary tense in which these words should be understood, or whether the accused was so indirectly or remotely connected with her death that he cannot properly be said to have "caused" it. It, is not contended before us that the accused intended to cause the death of the girl, and we may take it, for the purpose of this appeal, that he did not know that is act was even likely to cause her death. But it is clear that he did intend to cause the death of Appala Narssimhulu. In order to effect this he concealed poison in a sweetmeat and gave it to him to eat. It was these acts of the accused which caused the death of the girl, though, no doubt, her own action, in ignorantly picking up and eating the poison, contributed to bring about the result. Section 299 of the Indian Penal Code says: "whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing 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." It is to be observed that the Section does not require that the offender should intend to kill (or know himself to be likely to kill) any particular person. It is enough if he "causes the death" of any one by doing an act with the intention of "causing death" to any ere, whether the person intended to be killed or any one else. This is clear from the first illustration to the section, "A. lays sticks and turf over a fit, with the intention of thereby causing death, or with the knowledge that death is likely to be thereby caused. Z., believing the ground to be from, treads on it falls in and is killed. A. has committed the offence of culpable homicide."

7. Turning now of Section 300, Indian Penal Cede, we find that culpable homicide is murder if the act by which death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, and does not fall within certain specified exceptions, none of which are applicable to the present case.

8. It follows that the accused in the present, case is guilty of murder, and this is rendered still more clear by Section 300 of the Code. The cases in which culpable homicide is murder under Section 300 are not confined to cases in which the by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death. Section 300 specifies other degrees of intention or knowledge which may cause the act to amount to murder, and then Section 301 enacts, that if a person, by doing any thing which he intends or knows to be likely to cause death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any person, whose death he neither intends rot knows himself to be likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is of the description of which it would have been if he had caused the death of the person whose death he intended or knew himself to be likely to cause."

17. It is clear that the accused bad no intention of causing the death of the girl, Rajalakshmi. But it is contended that the accused is guilty of murder as he had the intention of causing the death of the Prosecution 1st witness, and it is immaterial that he had not the intention of causing the death of the girl herself. Section 299, Indian Penal Code, enacts that "whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the knowledge, that ha unlikely by such act to cause death commits the offence of (sic) homicide." Section 300 say: "culpable homicide is murder, if the sat by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death." Section 301 lays down, that "if a person, by doing anything which ho intends or knows to be likely to cause death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any person, whose death he neither intends nor himself to be likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is of the description of which it would have been if ho had caused the death of the person whose death he intend or knew himself to be likely to cause." The contention of the learned Public Prosecutor, to put it very shortly, is (1) that it was the accused's act that caused the death of the girl, and (2) that the accused had the intention of causing death when he gave the poison to the Prosecution 1st witness and was, therefore, guilty of arty death that resulted from, his act. He urges that the Sections of the Penal Code practically reproduce the English law, according to which the causing of death with malice afore though, though the malice may not be directed against a particular individual whose death ensues, would amount to murder. Before referring to the English law, I shall consider the provisions of the Penal Code bearing on the subject. If Mr. Napier's contention be sound, it would make no difference whether Appala Narasimhulu, the Prosecution 1st witness, also died in consequence of the poison or not; nor would it make any difference if, instead of the poison being picked up by the girl and even by herself, she gave it to some one else and that one to another again and so on if in changed any number of hands. The accused would be guilty of the murder of one and all of the persons who might take the poison, though it might have been impossible for him to imagine that, it would change hands in the manner that, it did. The contention practically amounts to saying that the intervention of other agencies and of any number of them, before death results, would (sic) no difference in the guilt of the accused, that causing death does not mean being the proximate cause of death, but merely being a link in the chain of the causes or events leading to the death, and that, further, any knowledge on the part; of the accused that such a chain of events might result from his act is quite immaterial. It is prima facie difficult to uphold such an argument. Now is there anything in the Sections of the Penal Code to support Section 39 provides that "A person is said to cause an effect 'voluntarily' when he causes it by means whereby be intended to (sic), or by means which, at the time of employing those means, he knew or bad reason to believe to b) likely to cu nit." The illustration to the Section is that if a person sets fire by night to an inhabited house in a large town for the purpose of facilitating robbery, and thus causes the death of a person, he would be taken to have caused the death voluntarily if he knew that he was likely to came it even though he may not have intended to cause death and may even be sorry that death had been earned by his act. The Section and the illustration both show that causation with respect to any event involves that the person should have knowledge that the event was Ilk sly to result from his act. Section 299, Indian Penal Code, in my opinion, does not lead to a different conclusion. But, before dealing with it, I must turn to Section 301, Indian Penal Code. That Section apparently applies to a case where the death of the person whose death was intended or known to be likely to occur by the person doing the act, does not, as a fact, occur, but the death of some one else occurs at the result of the act done by him. It evidently does not apply where the death both of the person whose death was in, contemplation and of another person or persons, has occurred. Can it be said that, in such a case, the doer of the act is guilty of homicide with reference to those whose death was not intended by him and could not have bean foreseen by him as likely to occur? Are we to hold that a man who knows that his act is likely to cause the death of one person is guilty of the death of all the others who happen to dif, but whose death was far beyond his imagination? Such a proposition it is impossible to maintain in Criminal Law. Section 301 of the Indian Penal Code has reference to a case where a person intending to cause the death of A., say by striking or shooting him, kills B. because B. is in the place where he imagined A. to be for B. rushes in to save A. and receives the injury intended for A. The reason for not exculpating the wrong doer in such cases is that he must take the risk of same other person being in the place where he expected to find A., or, of some one else intervening between him and A. The Section is a qualification of the rule laid down is Section 299 and is evidently confined to cases where the death of the person intended or known to be likely to be killed does not result. If the Public Prosecutor's general proposition were right, Section 301 of the Indian Penal Code would seem to be unnecessary as Section 299 would be quite enough. If a person is intended by Section 239 to be held to be guilty for deaths which are not known to be likely to occur, then that Section might itself have been worded differently so as to show that the particular death caused need not have been intended or foreseen and, what is more important, Section 301 of the Indian Penal Court would not be limited to cases where the death of the particular individual intended or foreseen does not occur. The gereral theory of the Criminal Law is that the doer of an act is responsible only for the consequences intended or known to be likely to ensue; for otherwise he could not be said to have caused the effect "voluntarily," and a person is not responsible for the involuntary effects of his acts. Illustrations A. and B., it my opinion, support this view. Sections 323 and 324 show that a person is responsible in the case of hurt or grievous hurt only for what he causes voluntarily; and Section 321 shows that hurt to the particular person in question must have been intended or foreseen. In the eye of the law, no doubt, a man will be taken to have foreseen what an ordinary individual ought to foresee, and it will not be open to him to plead that he himself was so foolish as, in fact, not to foresee the consequence of his act. A person might in soma cases be responsible for effects of which his act is not the proximate cause where the effect is likely to arise in the ordinary course of events to result from the act. This rule will certainly hold good where a persons act set in motion only physical causes which lead to the effects actually occurring; when the effect is not due merely to physical causes set in operation by an act, but other persons' wills intervening are equally necessary causes with the original act to lead to the result, it is more difficult to decide whether the act in question can be said to be the cause of the effect finally produced. The Code throws very little light on the question. Ordinarily, a man is not criminally responsible for the acts of another person, and ordinarily, his act should not be held to bi the cause of a consequence which would not result without the intervention of another human agency. Sir J. (sic) James Stephen, in his History of the Criminal Law of England, Vol. III, p. 8, say: "A more remarkable set of cases are those in which death is caused by some act which does unquestionably cause it, but does so through the intervention of the independent voluntary act of some other person. Suppose, for instance, A. tells B. of facts which operate as a motive to B. for the murder of C. It would be an abase of language to say that A. had killed C., though, no doubt, re has been the remote cause of C.'s death." The learned author proceeds to point out that, even when a person counsels, procures or commands another to do an act, he would be only guilty as an abettor but not as a principal offender whose act caused the result, say murder. This is the well settled principle of the English Law, though there appear to be one or two exceptions, to be hereafter pointed out. No such exceptions are mentioned in the Indian Code. They may, perhaps, be recognised where the doer of the act knew that it would be likely that his own act would lead other persons, not acting wrongfully, to act in such a manner as to cause the effect actually produced. But the scope of the exceptions cannot cover those cases where the doer could not foresee that other persons would act in the manner indicated above. This is the principle adopted in determining civil liability for wrongs. See the discussion of the question in Baker v. Snell (1908) 2 K.B. 825 : 77 L.J.B. 100, 24 T.L.R. 811 : 99 L.T. 753 : 21 Cox. C.C. 716. A stricter rule cannot by applied in cases of criminal liability.

23. The question depends upon the provisions of the Indian Penal Code on the subject as contained in Sections 299 to 301. The first point for inquiry is whether the definition of culpable homicide, as given in Section 299, requires that the accused's intention to cause death or his knowledge that death is likely to be caused by his act in question must be found to exist with reference to the particular person whose death has actually been caused by such act, or it is sufficient for purposes of the section, if criminal intention or knowledge on part of the accused existed with reference to any human being, though the death of the person who actually fell a victim to the accused's act was never compassed by him. I find nothing in the words of the Section which would justify the limited construction. Section 299 says: "whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injory 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." The language is perfectly general; all that it requires is that there should be an intention to cause death or a knowledge that death is likely to be the result, and there is nothing in reason which, in my opinion, would warrant us in saying that the homicidal intention or knowledge must be with reference to the life of the person whose death is actually caused. The law affords protection equally to the lives of all persons, and once the criminal intention, that is, an intention to destroy human life, is found, I do not see why it should make any difference whether the act done with such intention causes the death of the person aimed at or of some one else. Illustration A. to Section 299 makes it quite clear that the Legislature deliberately employed general and unqualified language in order to cover cases where the person whose death is caused by the act of the accused was not the person intended to be killed by him but some other person. Section 301 also supports this construction, as it assumes that the accused in such eases would be guilty of culpable homicide; and I may here point out that the object of this Section is to lay down that the nature of culpable homicide of which the accused in these cases would be guilty, namely, whether murder or not, would be the same as he would have been guilty of, if the person whose death was intended to be brought about had been killed. Now, the first paragraph of Section 300 declares that culpable homicide shall be deemed to be under if the act by which death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, using so far the very words of Section 299. In the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of Section 300 the language is not quite identical with that of the corresponding provisions in Section 299, and questions may possibly arise whether, where the fatal act was done not with the intention of causing death but with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that the accused is likely, by such act, to cause death, the offence would be one of murder or culpable homicide not amounting to murder. But it is not necessary for me to express any opinion on these matters as in the present case the prisoner undoubtedly intended to cause death.