Section 304-II IPC

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Bombay High Court: Swapna Joshi, J. partly allowed a criminal appeal and altered the conviction of the appellant — an Ayurvedic certificate holder — from the one under Section 304 (II) IPC to that under Section 304-A IPC.

The appellant was convicted for causing the death of two deceased persons. The deceased had visited the appellant for treatment of knee pain. The appellant, who was not qualified as a doctor/medical practitioner, administered an injection to the deceased. Both the deceased persons, after administration of the injection, developed lumps which resulted in their deaths. The appellant was convicted under Section 304 (II) IPC and Section 33 of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioner Act, 1961. Aggrieved thereby, the appellant filed the present appeal.

According to the High Court: “The accused was not registered as a medical practitioner. He was simply a certificate holder in Ayurvedic Medicine. He was under a statutory duty not to enter the filed of any other system of medicines as he was not qualified in other system i.e. allopathy. The accused trespassed into a prohibited field and therefore he is liable to be prosecuted under Section 33 of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners Act, 1961.”

However, the Court was of the view that his conviction for committing culpable homicide not amounting to murder was liable to be altered to causing death by negligence. Holding that the appellant had no knowledge the injury was likely to cause death, the High Court observed: The learned trial Judge should have considered the evidence led by the prosecution witnesses in its right perspective. In the instant case, the accused did not have a knowledge that the death was likely to be caused due to the act of administering unsterilised injections. It appears that the accused in good-faith has treated both the deceased to relieve them from knee pain from which they were suffering. The conduct of the accused shows that the accused has taken Muktabai from one doctor to the other to save her life, however, unfortunately, she succumbed to her injuries and died due to septicemia which was developed due to the piercing of the injections. There is no convincing evidence on record to show that the accused had a knowledge that due to the piercing of the injection, the lump would be created, due to which, septicemia would cause.”

Resultantly, the criminal appeal filed by the appellant was partly allowed in the terms above. [Bhupal Malayya Agbattini v. State of Maharashtra, Crl. Appeal no. 406 of 2018, decided on 09-04-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Madhya Pradesh High Court: S.C. Sharma, J. allowed a criminal appeal, filed against the order of conviction under Ss. 304, 323 and 149 of IPC, 1860 passed by Trial Court.

Prosecution narrated that, daughter of appellant got sick one day; he suspected that deceased and his wife had practiced ‘witchcraft’ on her. To take revenge of such alleged act of the deceased, the appellant along with others assaulted the deceased along with his family. Deceased lodged an FIR under relevant sections of IPC against the accused. After the alleged FIR was lodged, police performed the medical examination of the victim, recorded the statements of witnesses and also prepared a spot map. Prosecution submitted that, the victim during his treatment, ten days after assault died as he suffered grievous hurt which resulted in his death which is also stated in panchnama and postmortem report. Eventually accused was duly arrested.

All witnesses along with the Medical Officer testified against the appellant and had narrated the crime in brief. The medical examination report stated that injuries were caused by heavy, hard and blunt objects and, Cause of death of the injured was cardio respiratory failure as a result of multiple injuries over the body.

Learned counsel for the appellants, Siddharth Jain, contended that there was an anomaly in the statements of the witnesses on the point that which accused assaulted the deceased and other injured persons. He further contended that appellants were not guilty and were falsely implicated in the aforementioned case. He argued that the testimony of witnesses were not in conformity with each other as to which respondent inflicted injuries to the deceased.

The Court observed that the injuries could not have been caused on account of an accident and were not self-inflicted, and therefore, the death of the deceased was neither accidental nor suicidal, hence, it was homicidal in nature. Court stated that, appellant gave a blow of Tangiya (axe) on the non-vital part of the deceased, therefore, it would be apparent that he has assaulted the deceased, and therefore, it cannot be said that there was no intention on the part of the appellant to kill the deceased. Court held that the trial court has not committed any error in convicting the appellant for the offence punishable under Section 304 (II) IPC for causing culpable homicide. It was established based upon the evidence that he inflicted grievous injuries to the wife of deceased also, and therefore, his conviction under relevant sections does not warrant any interference by Court. The participation of the other co-accused persons has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt; hence, offence under Sections 147 and 148 automatically goes.[Anokhilal v. State of M.P., 2019 SCC OnLine MP 842, decided on 14-05-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Delhi High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Mukta Gupta, J. allowed a bail application holding that the petitioner was entitled to default bail as the investigating agency failed to file chargesheet within 60 days.

The petitioner was alleged to be driving a white colour car at high speed without a license in an intoxicated state. On the fateful night, he lost control and rammed his car over the footpath. The car hit a tree and turned upside down. Four people, including the complainant and three other sleeping on the footpath, were injured. They were taken to hospital where two them were declared brought dead. The petitioner was arrested on 9-9-2018 and has been in custody since then. He filed an application seeking bail before the trial court. Besides the merits, he urged additional ground that he was entitled to default bail as chargesheet was not filed in the case. However, the trial court dismissed the application on the ground that it could not at that stage from an opinion whether the offence committed was under Section 304-I or 304-II IPC. Offence under Section 304-II IPC being punishable upto life imprisonment and 90 days from the date of arrest having not elapsed, the petitioner was not entitled to default bail. Aggrieved thereby, he filed the present petition.

The petitioner who was represented by R.K. Wadhwa, Vishesh Wadhwa and Meena Duggal, Advocates submitted that on the face of allegations, it could not be held that he committed the offence with any intention and at best knowledge could be attributed to him.

The High Court perused the record and observed that the facts of the case spoke for themselves that at best what was attributable to petitioner was the knowledge that his act was likely to cause the death of people sleeping on the footpath, in which case the offence was under Section 304-II. Such offence is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to 10 years. After referring to Rakesh Kumar Paul v. State of Assam, (2017) 15 SCC 67, the Court held that since a period of 60 days has elapsed from the date of arrest of the petitioner and no chargesheet was filed by the investigating agency, he was entitled to default bail. Consequently, the petitioner was granted bail subject to the conditions imposed. [Devesh Kumar v. State, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 13073, dated 21-12-2018]