Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

3. As I have stated Amalesh Chandra Roy was acquitted on both the charges made against him. Sunil Chandra Roy was acquitted of murder and of causing hurt to Mrs. Sati Mitra but was found guilty of causing grievous hurt under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code. He was further found guilty of criminal trespass.

4. Satyendra Chandra Roy was found guilty of causing simple hurt 'to Nirmal Kumar Mitra and both Sunil Chandra Roy and Satyendra Chandra Roy were found guilty of criminal trespass. Sunil Chandra Roy was sentenced under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code to two years' rigorous imprisonment and under Section 447 of the Indian Penal Code to one month's rigorous imprisonment, the sentences to run concurrently. Satyendra Chandra Roy was sentenced under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code to pay a fine of Rs. 350/- and in default of payment to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month and under Section 447 of the Indian Penal Code to pay a fine of Rs. 150/- and in default of payment to undergo rigorous imprisonment for fifteen days.

26. If Sunil Chandra Roy caused all the injuries, then he might been guilty under Sections 302, 304 or Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code. If all these injuries were caused by a fall due to excitement then clearly Sunil Chandra Roy was guilty of no offence at all. If the fractures were caused by direct violence but the facial injuries were caused by a fall, then of course Sunil Chandra Roy might have been convicted under any of the three sections already indicated. However, if the facial injuries only were caused by a direct blow and the fractures were caused by a fall, Sunil Chandra Roy might only be liable under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code, namely, for voluntarily causing hurt. Though grievous hurt may be caused in an assault, it does not at all follow that the person who assaulted is guilty of causing grievous hurt under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code. A person is only liable under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code if he voluntarily causes grievous hurt and voluntarily causing hurt according to Section 322 of the Code means if he intends to cause grievous hurt or knew himself to be likely to cause such hurt.

27. Now a man striking another with a rod might have no intention of causing grievous hurt and it might be said that he would have no knowledge that he was likely to cause grievous hurt. In such a case if grievous hurt was caused owing to a fall after the blow, the person guilty of assault might well not be liable for causing grievous hurt. On the other hand,; if the nature of the blow was such that the jury could attribute to the person committing the assault knowledge that he was likely as at result of the blow to cause grievous hurt, then the conviction under Section 325 might be sustained.

28. However, it is clear that on the facts of this case a possible verdict, if the jury accepted any part of the evidence for the prosecution, was a verdict of guilty under Section 323. But the jury in this very lengthy charge, which as I have said took over a number of days, were told nothing as to the possibility of an offence under Section 323 being established. The learned Judge in considerable detail charged the jury as to what amounted to murder under Section 302, and then went on to say that if the jury were not satisfied that it was a case of murder, they might be satisfied that it was a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, that is offence under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code. He explained the two classes of offences under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code in great detail and then told the jury that if they were not satisfied that an offence under Section 304 had been committed, they would still have to consider whether an offence of causing grievous hurt under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code, had been committed. He then explained to the jury in detail what an offence under Section 304 amounted to. But there he stopped. The jury were therefore left with four alternatives, either to convict under. Section 302 or Section 304 or Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code or acquit the appellants altogether. The jury were never directed as to what they should do, if they had arrived at the conclusion that Sunil Chandra Roy had been guilty of assault; but had only inflicted the facial injuries. That was quite a possible result of the deliberations of the jury. But if they arrived at that result, the charge only gave them the alternative of convicting under Section 325 or acquitting altogether. It appears to me that in a case of this kind the failure to direct the jury that a conviction under Section 323 instead of under Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code was possible amounts to a very serious misdirection. The jury might have been satisfied that Sunil Chandra Roy had attacked the Colonel with a rod in which case they would have been extremely loath to acquit him altogether. Yet they might not have been satisfied that this attack with a rod caused the fractures and indeed the suggestion of the prosecution was that the fractures were not caused by a blow from the rod but by some fist blows. The jury might have come to the conclusion that fist blows on the skull would not be very likely to cause a fracture because there is nothing to suggest that Colonel Mitra had what is known as an egg shell skull, that is one easily. fractured by a light blow. It appears to me that the jury were not therefore given the proper alternatives in this case and were deprived of the opportunity of returning a verdict on a lesser charge if they had thought that only facial injuries had been caused by Sunil Chandra Roy. This failure to charge the jury on Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code is enough to vitiate the charge.