1987 Road Rage Case :"No Intention To Kill", Navjot Singh Sidhu Opposes Plea To Enhance Sentence; Supreme Court Reserves Judgment

The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its judgment on the review petition preferred by the family of victim Gurnam Singh against its 2018 verdict that had reduced the sentence of Navjot Singh Sidhu to Rs 1000 from 3 years imprisonment in a 1987 road rage accident in which Gurnam Singh had died.The review petitions were listed before the bench of Justices A. M. Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul. On February 25, the Top Court had asked asked Navjot Singh Sidhu to file reply on the miscellaneous application seeking punishing Sidhu for the offence of murder instead of causing hurt under section 323 IPC for which he was convicted. Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra for the petitioners had earlier submitted that the petitioners had filed an application seeking enlargement of the scope of notice (which limited on the aspect of quantum of sentence).Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, for the petitioners: "The application is predicated on 2 decisions having not been considered. The first is Virsa Singh 1958 SCR 1495. This has been followed in a judgment called Richhpal Singh Meena 2014 8 SCC 918. I had quoted from the latter to point out that it relies on the former to come to the conclusion that if death is caused by injury or hurt, it will not be considered under 304. I am not for a moment getting into the details of the evidence as this court has said that evidence is only to be looked at for the purpose of arriving at the findings already arrived at. Virsa Singh test ignored in this case. Virsa says, 'To put it shortly, the prosecution must prove the following facts before it can bring a case under s. 300, 3rdly " ; First, it must establish, quite objectively, that a bodily injury is present; Secondly, the nature of the injury must be proved; These are purely objective investigations. Thirdly, it must be proved that there was an intention to inflict that particular bodily injury, that is to say, that it was not accidental or unintentional, or that some other kind of injury was intended. Once these three elements are proved to be present, the enquiry proceeds further and, Fourthly, it must be proved that the injury of the type just described made up of the three elements set out above is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. This part of the enquiry is purely objective and inferential and has nothing to do with the intention of the offender. Once these four elements are established by the prosecution (and, of course, the burden is on the prosecution throughout) the offence is murder under s. 300, 3rdly. It does not matter that there was no intention to cause death. It does not matter that there was Do intention even to cause an injury of a kind that is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature (not that there is any real distinction between the two). It does not even matter that there is no knowledge that an act of that kind will be likely to cause death. Once the intention to cause the bodily injury actually found to be present is proved, the rest of the enquiry is purely objective and the only question is whether, as a matter of purely objective inference, the injury is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. No one has a licence to run around inflicting injuries that are sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature and claim that they are not guilty of murder. If they inflict injuries of that kind, they must face the consequences; and they can only escape if it can be shown, or reasonably deduced that the injury was accidental or otherwise unintentional'"Continuing, Mr. Luthra submitted, "This is the locus classicus. Please look at section 300, IPC- 'Except in the cases hereinafter excepted, culpable homicide is murder, if the act by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, or--...Thirdly.--If it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, or--...'. Please look at Exception 4 which says that culpable homicide is not murder if it is without premeditation, in a sudden fight, in the heat of passion, upon a sudden quarrel and without the offenders having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel and unusual manner""In the present case, the fact that there is an injury is part of the post-mortem report. There is no dispute to that. The fact that this injury is antemortem is not a matter of dispute, Your Lordships have held that. The fact that it was intentionally caused is also noted in the judgment. We have three elements- the fact of the injury, the fact that it is an ante-mortem injury and the fact that it was caused intentionally by the respondent. The question really is about the principles in Virsa and Richhpal. Having considered that- why this matter merits consideration- When we had argued this matter, we had placed on record detailed written submissions and along with that we had...

1987 Road Rage Case :"No Intention To Kill", Navjot Singh Sidhu Opposes Plea To Enhance Sentence; Supreme Court Reserves Judgment

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