Overwide discretion in mitigation helps none

Under the scheme of the Indian Penal Code , 1860, homicide falls into two categories i.e. murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Where an offence satisfies only the requirements of Section 299, which defines culpable homicide, while does not figure into any of the four clauses of Section 300, the offence is punishable as culpable homicide not amounting to murder and not murder per se. But in case the offence satisfies the essentials of murder, there is still a possibility that the accused is not made liable for it. The next inquiry, then, is to see whether the act was committed under the operation of certain specific extenuating or mitigating circumstances. If it is so, the offence automatically stands reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The Code initially provided for three such mitigating circumstances, which were subsequently extended to five and were termed as “Exceptions” to Section 300.
A “mitigating circumstance” relates to the operation of such factors at the time of the commission of an offence which reduce the actual degree of culpability that an offender should be charged with. These, though, do not offer a complete vindication on the conduct of the accused yet are fit grounds of mitigation. Therefore, the law decided to punish a homicide committed in the heat of passion so as to teach men to entertain respect for the human life, but not as severely as murder.4 It was believed that to treat a person guilty of such homicide as murder would shock the universal feelings of mankind5 and so the common law sought to treat an intentional killing done in cold blood, and an intentional killing done in hot blood under the influence of a provocation differently. 6
The cases of such provoked killing like those of unbridled road rage aggression as exemplified in the largely debated Navjot Singh Sidhu case have brought to focus the normative and social debates pertaining to demarcation of culpability for murder by Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC. Exception 4 was, basically, brought to deal with a situation wherein the accused would act under a heated passion which would be so high that it would deprive a person suddenly though temporarily of his power of self?control and render him not master of his own mind. But, over the years owing to several judicial decisions there has emerged an inconsistency in the understanding and application of this Exception. This seems to be a result of the liberal interpretation that the Exception has been put to time and again by the judiciary. The paper attempts to develop a nuance understanding of Exception 4 to Section 300 and bring forth the irregularities in its application in light of the recent judicial pronouncements.
Ingredients of Exception 4 to Section 300Exception 4 to Section 300 reads as follows:Exception 4.—Culpable homicide is not murder if it is committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel and without the offender’s having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.
Explanation.—It is immaterial in such cases which party offers the provocation or commits the first assault.”
Now, in order to ensure the applicability of Exception 4 in a given case, each one of the following ingredients has to be proved, that is— (i) the act was committed without premeditation; (ii) it was committed in a sudden fight; (iii) it was committed in the heat of passion; (iv) it was committed upon a sudden quarrel; and (v) it was committed without the offender having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.
The word “premeditation” as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary7 is
“Conscious consideration and planning that precedes some act (such as committing a crime).”
The underlying rationale is that someone who kills having lost self?control does not deserve to be labelled a murderer alongside those who kill deliberately and in a premeditated way. The test is not whether the killing was premeditated or not. It has to be checked whether the act of the accused which caused the death was done with premeditation or not. Even if the killing is not premeditated but if the act which causes the killing is premeditated Exception 4 would not apply and the offence is “murder”. 8
The word “sudden” prefixes both the expressions “sudden fight” and “sudden quarrel”. It is defined in P. Ramanatha Aiyar’s Concise Law Dictionary9 as “happening or coming without warning or premonition; taking place or appearing all at once”.
The word “fight” has not been defined anywhere in IPC but in common parlance it means a combat between two armed or unarmed persons. Black’s Law Dictionary10 defines “quarrel” as an altercation or angry dispute; an exchange of recriminations, usually another person’s words or actions. It is clear that there is no physical element involved in “quarrel”.
Another very important ingredient is “heat of passion”, what does it mean? It refers to rage, terror or furious hatred suddenly aroused by some immediate provocation, usually by another person’s words or actions. In common law also, heat of passion is a mitigating circumstance in the defence of murder that would reduce the charge of murder to manslaughter. 11
Finally and most importantly, all the ingredients would be perfected only when the accused has not taken any “undue advantage” or has not reacted in a cruel or unusual manner. If the weapon or manner of attack by the assailant is out of all proportion to the offence given, that circumstance must be taken into consideration for deciding whether “undue advantage” has been taken. In such a case the accused must be held to have acted in an unusual manner.12
Now, prima facie there seems to be no conflict between the drafting of the Exception and the interpretation as articulated in the form of the essential ingredients, mentioned by several authors, for an offender to avail the benefit of the Exception. But the conflict actually comes to the fore when we look at the judicial decisions on the same. The words “sudden fight” and “sudden quarrel” which are specifically and separately mentioned by the drafters of the Code have been used interchangeably and in overlapping contexts.
Comparison of Exception 1 with Exception 4Now, in order to develop a correct understanding of as to when should Exception 4 be brought into consideration, it is necessary to appreciate what the drafters of the Code sought to achieve while introducing this Exception in addition to Exception 1, thereby, making a departure from the English Law on “provocation”.
Both Exception 1 and Exception 4 to Section 300 cover the act committed under ungovernable passions but the very fact that there exist two Exceptions indicates that the legislature sought to distinguish one from the other. The doubts regarding the applicability of Exception 1 were put to rest by the authoritative ruling in K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra13 but unfortunately Exception 4, as has earlier been stated, has more often than not been misconstrued.
Exception 1, dealing with “grave and sudden provocation”, brings forth a situation wherein a person is so provoked by the act of another that he is totally deprived of his self-control and assaults the person causing such provocation which leads to his death. So, clearly the provocation is unilateral which may be either by words, gestures or physical injury. Exception 4 on the other hand, presupposes a factual situation in which two people get into a heated argument which is then followed by a combat or fight in which one person kills the other. Such an offender would then find Exception 4 to his rescue. Even here the provocation is same as in Exception 1, but the injury done is not the direct consequence of that provocation. The provocation is bilateral and the deceased also retaliates by engaging in a free fight. And rightly so, the Exception is available to both the persons irrespective of who causes the provocation first. It means that a situation wherein the accused immediately after a verbal altercation assaults the deceased provoked by the exchange of words, abuses should categorically come under Exception 1 and not under Exception 4 simply because there was no free fight as it takes at least two persons to make a fight, a bilateral transaction.14 The provocation given itself was so high that it caused a total deprivation of self-control which propelled the accused to commit such a grave act while in the latter the provocation is as high as to cause a partial deprivation of self-control which though does not cause him to commit murder but to enter into a scuffle or a “fight”.
Interpretation envisaged by the legislatureNow, having brought out the points of distinction between Exception 1 and Exception 4 to Section 300, wherein the former is meant specifically to deal with a situation of total deprivation of mind and unilateral provocation while the latter for a set of facts involving a partial deprivation of mind resulting out of a bilateral provocation, we shall further elaborate upon as to how the term “fight” used in Exception 4 should be construed and how the misconstrued interpretation has resulted into irregularities.
The word “fight”, as is already mentioned, is used to convey something more than a mere verbal quarrel15 , a combat whether with or without weapons.16 An affray can constitute “fight” even if only one party in the fight is successful in landing a blow on his opponent. But in order to constitute a fight it is necessary that blows should be exchanged even if they do not all find their target.17 Furthermore, it doesn’t amount to free fight and the Exception does not apply where a person chases another for a long distance and then kills him.18 In Ravi Kumar v. State of Punjab19 the Supreme Court reached to a conclusion that Exception 4 could be read into the facts of the case where the accused in the course of only a heated argument, gave a blow to the deceased with a dagger (dhangu). Here there are no signs of any two-way combat or fight between the accused and the deceased, furthermore the accused seems to have acted in a cruel manner by using a dagger against an unarmed person but still the Court held that the given factual matrix fell under Exception 4 to Section 300 and convicted him under Part I of Section 304.
A chain of occurrence: “sudden quarrel” to be followed by “sudden fight”
The above explanation brings us to the conclusion that Exception 4 should be applied only where exist both “sudden fight” and “sudden quarrel” in a factual situation. Actually, the acts which the drafters seek to cover by means of this Exception must satisfy a particular chain of occurrence because all the requisites are met only when this chain is completed. The absence of any of the links would, on its own, take the act away from Exception 4. As it was also rightly pointed by the Court in Mangat v. State20 , that this Exception is not intended as a means of resolving doubts or of avoiding a definite decision where this is possible. It was only meant to be applied to facts of a case which are ascertainable with a reasonable amount of certainty.
Now, let us consider all the possible permutations, in this context, in which an act resulting into death can be caused. First, a one-way or two-way quarrel immediately followed by one-sided blows—assault—causing death, second, no verbal altercation and direct blows either one way or two way, finally a two-way session of verbal abuse followed by exchange of blows leading to death. We shall now discuss the applicability of this Exception on all these possibilities one by one.
In Sridhar Bhuyan v. State of Orissa 21, where the person picks up a knife and stabs another in the stomach merely following an exchange of heated words, it would be either regarded as a provocative act which would fall appropriately under Exception 120 or would be an act out of some other motive where he would then be liable for murder.22
The second situation shows premeditation because no two sober people sitting together or passing each other would ever start fighting in the absence of any sort of mutual exchange of words unless they had preplanned to do so. The same happened in Inacio Manuel Miranda v. State of Goa23 where the accused had a previous dislike for the deceased whereupon when they were drinking together the accused went and brought a knife and killed the deceased. No evidence whatsoever of “sudden quarrel” was found and so the accused was charged under Section 302 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
So now, ultimately what remains is only the third situation which would exactly fit into the scheme of the desired Exception. It is now, thus, well settled that both these essentials of “sudden quarrel” and “sudden fight” are mutually exclusive and there exists no overlapping between the two. The absence of the former would never result in the latter while the absence of the latter would directly attract Exception 1 and Exception 4 would be out of question. Both of these are thus indispensable and it is only on the completion of this chain of causation that the benefit of the Exception can be availed successfully. The same was held in Hans Raj Singh v. Emperor15 wherein the Court accepted that though a mere quarrel or a wordy warfare can also be regarded as a fight but the fact that the terms “fight” and “quarrel” are used in the Exception side by side indicates that the intention of the legislature was that there should be something more than a mere quarrel. So, the facts of a case must be capable of giving rise with reasonable amount of definiteness to the conclusion that it was a case of “sudden fight” upon a “sudden quarrel”.2020 This line of argument, would now, be further buttressed in light of the principles of statutory interpretation.
The rule of strict statutory interpretationThe rule of strict statutory interpretation as has already been mentioned states that the language of the article being plain and unambiguous, it is not open to us to read into it the limitations which are not there, based on a priori reasoning as to the probable intention of the legislature. Such intention could be gathered only from the words actually used in the statute; and in a court of law, what is unexpressed has the same value as what is unintended. 24 It is a settled law that to ascertain the meaning of a section it is not permissible to omit any part of it; the whole section should be read together and an attempt should be made to reconcile both the parts. 25 All the phrases are to be construed according to the rules of grammar. 26 The Supreme Court has gone a step ahead and held that a construction which will promote predictability of results, maintenance of reasonable orderliness and simplification of judicial task must even fall favours with the court as among the competing ones. 27
Now, this is precisely what the courts have in a plethora of cases failed to appreciate. The Exception explicitly lays down the two requirements of “sudden quarrel” and “sudden fight” but in practice any sort of mutual exchange of words or gestures or abuses have been understood as “sudden fight” and the Exception has been applied.
Analysing the recent judicial decisionsThe researchers, in this part of the article shall analyse the recent judicial decisions on the issue and point out the resulting ambiguities, which have hitherto remained an unexplored territory of criminal law. Eventually, in light of the scheme of ingredients as stated, we would pose certain questions, which we have already addressed through our line of interpretation, that are fundamental to the understanding and clarity of the law on the issue.
In the recent case of Ramkishan v. State of Maharashtra28 the accused rushed towards the deceased, who was allegedly an encroacher upon his land, armed with an axe and was followed by his sons having swords. The accused then gave a blow on the head of the deceased with the axe to which the deceased succumbed. Now, although this version of the facts was disputed by the defence, the Supreme Court agreed to this argument only as regards the involvement of the sons of the accused. As far as the complicity of the accused himself was concerned it was accepted beyond doubt that he had landed the fatal blow on the head of the deceased with an axe.
Now, interestingly, nothing in the facts suggested that there was any “sudden quarrel”, or a “sudden fight”, a combat or a two-way exchange of blows. It was apparent on the face of it that the attack was a premeditated one considering the fact that the accused was already armed when he met the deceased. Further the Court reached on to a conclusion that the accused had not taken any undue advantage. Ironically, the Court referred to the judgment in Kikar Singh v. State of Rajasthan29 and quoted a few lines which are as follows:
Therefore, if the appellant used deadly weapons against the unarmed man and struck a blow on the head it must be held that using the blows with the knowledge that they were likely to cause death, he had taken undue advantage. 30
Now, it is beyond comprehension as to how the Court, on this line of reasoning, which is sound, arrived on to an “inevitable conclusion” that the accused had not acted cruelly despite the fact that the accused had given the fatal blow right on the head of the deceased with a sharp-edged weapon as deadly as an axe and which any reasonable man would know to be likely to cause death. The Court, finally, held that the conviction had to be altered to one under Section 304 Part I IPC instead of Section 302 IPC and therefore a custodial sentence of 10 years would suffice.
In Lachman Singh v. State of Haryana31 it was proved that the accused, Lachman Singh with his father Dev Singh (co-accused) and the deceased with two other persons standing on the roofs of their respective kitchens were having an exchange of abuses over an issue of the flow of water. All of a sudden the father of the accused asked his son Lachman Singh to bring a revolver and thereafter stated “shoot them”, whereupon the accused fired and the shot hit the deceased who then fell down. Then, the father took the revolver and shot the other two people standing on the side of the deceased who were injured. The Supreme Court held that:
“In fact Exception 4 deals with cases in which notwithstanding that a blow may have been struck, or some provocation given in the origin of the dispute or in whatever way the quarrel may have originated, yet the subsequent conduct of both parties puts them in respect of guilt upon equal footing. A ‘sudden fight’ implies mutual provocation and blows on each side. … in this case, the parties have worked themselves into a fury on account of the verbal altercation in the beginning. A fight is a combat between two and more persons whether with or without weapons. … It must further be shown that the offender has not taken undue advantage or acted in cruel or unusual manner. 32
The Court still went on to hold that: (SCC p. 530, para 6)
“[a]nalysing the evidence in the background set out above, the inevitable conclusion is that conviction of Lachman Singh has to be altered from Section 302 IPC to Section 304 Part I IPC” thereby sentencing the accused to ten years of rigorous imprisonment. 33
In Sandhya Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra34 uncle of the deceased (who was the landlord) was assaulted by the accused (the tenants) when he approached them for the rent upon a collusion and in furtherance of the common intention. The deceased intervened to separate them whereupon he was assaulted by a knife-blow on the back by the appellant and he succumbed to the injuries. Here, firstly, nowhere do the evidence suggest that there was an altercation between the accused and the deceased and secondly, the deceased intervened only to separate them which shows that there was no free fight. Here again, the Court held that the Exception finds its application only in a case where a sudden fight results owing to the conduct of both the parties and no single party is blameworthy for it. That is, there is a provocation from the side of both parties and they are, therefore, both equally liable. 35 In the present facts, however, it is difficult to believe that there was a mutual provocation when the deceased was a mere innocent intervener. The Court further held that Exception 4 to Section 300 has full application and altered the conviction to Section 304 Part II IPC instead of Section 302 with a custodial sentence of seven years.
In Pappu v. State of M.P. 36 the deceased had an exchange of hot words and altercation after which the appellant gave a lathi-blow on the left side of his head which proved fatal. The co-accused also gave one blow each to the deceased. After that the appellant threatened his other family members and then finally fled away. The Supreme Court held that Exception 4 applied in the case while the fact that the necessary chain of events requires a “sudden fight” as emanating from “sudden quarrel” went unnoticed. Also the subsequent conduct suggested that the homicidal act of the accused was not actuated only out of momentary loss of self-control. Yet the accused was convicted under Part II of Section 304 IPC.
Sridhar Bhuyan v. State of Orissa21 again brings a similar factual matrix wherein the accused in the course of a verbal argument went inside his house, came out with a knife and dealt blows on the back of the deceased who was unarmed and when the deceased turned back he caught hold of his neck and pierced the knife into his chest. The Supreme Court reiterated the essentials of Exception 4 and held that:
“7. For bringing in operation of Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC, it has to be established that the act was committed without premeditation, in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel without the offender having taken undue advantage and not having acted in a cruel or unusual manner.” 37
It decided that:
Considering the above facts the conclusion that follows is that the case is not covered under Section 302 IPC. The ingredients necessary to bring in application of Exception 4 to Section 300 IPC are present. 38
All the abovementioned cases and many others bring forth the irregularities in the applicability of Exception 4. In each of these cases one or the other crucial point of law has been misconstrued or has been left completely unaccounted for. These issues are as follows:
Whether the terms “sudden quarrel” and “sudden fight” as mentioned by the Exception connote two different meanings i.e. the former denoting a verbal altercation or mutual exchange of words and the latter denoting a combat which may be with or without weapons or that the two expressions can be used interchangeably in an overlapping sense?
Whether a two-way exercise of force is an essential prerequisite for there being a “sudden fight” or a mere unilateral use of force would amount to “sudden fight” under the meaning of the provision?
Whether the particular case can be brought under Exception 4 even when the accused has used a deadly weapon against the deceased, when the deceased was totally unarmed?
Can the ambit of “sudden provocation” or the “temporary loss of self-control” supposed by the legislature be so widened that the act of the accused procuring the murder weapon from some other place and not having it at the instance of his momentary loss of self-control could still be brought under Exception 4?
Can the liability of the accused be lessened by virtue of Exception 4 even when the deceased is merely an innocent intervener who seeks to separate people engaged in a scuffle without there taking place any scuffle between him and the accused?
The interpretation that the Exception has been put to time and again by the judiciary raises these questions that need to be addressed by the judiciary in the interest of a uniform and predictable law on the point. It is worthwhile in this regard to mention one of the fundamental rules of interpretation which says that if the words of a statute are in themselves precise and unambiguous, nothing more is necessary than to expound those in their natural and ordinary sense, the words themselves in such a case best declaring the intention of the legislature.39
Lord Macaulay while drafting the Indian Penal Code expressed his intention as:
Our principle is simply this — uniformity when you can have it; diversity when you must have it; but in all cases certainty.40
Impact of the present decisionsA trend which is easily noticeable in these decisions of the Hon’ble Court and the present reasoning that they seem to concur with, has undone the actual distinction between Exception 1, grave and sudden provocation and Exception 4. Cases, which possibly justify their place under Exception 1, as the homicide committed is a direct impact of the heated argument itself, the provocation being so high that it results into total deprivation of mind, without there being any “fight” between the parties, are unnecessarily been accommodated under Exception 4. Even the cases which should squarely constitute the offence of “murder” and where there exist no “sudden quarrel” and premeditation is apparent from the set of facts, are provided benefit of the provision. Furthermore, the ambit of “sudden provocation” has been made unduly flexible which is subject to extensions time and again. This is well illustrated by Lachman Singh v. State of Haryana3131, wherein despite the fact that there was no free fight and the accused fetched the murder weapon from inside of his house and then shot the deceased, both of which was done at the behest of his father, he managed to avail the Exception on an “obvious” ground that he had a “sudden provocation”.
An approach like this further leaves a scope for all the cases of hot?blooded murder which are not covered by the other four Exceptions to be simply put in this category of murder committed under a “sudden fight” despite the assault being unilateral or there being no sudden quarrel or the accused acting cruelly.
Another reason for the probability of such cases being read under Exception 4 is the fact that Exception 1 asks for a higher degree of provocation or passion which might not exist in most of the cases, and so Exception 4 would then operate as a simpler alternative. The present interpretation of Exception 4 has blurred the distinction between “sudden fight” and “sudden quarrel”. This line of reasoning has widened the scope of Exception 4 to a great extent leading to inconsistent convictions which have, in turn, substantially weakened, both, the essence of the Exception, in particular as well as the theory of mitigating circumstance, in general.
ConclusionIn light of the above discussion it is submitted that the Hon’ble Courts do not appear to be favouring the view as articulated and, thus, have not confined themselves strictly by the normative provisions and a wide ranging discretion has come into play. The exercise of such judicial discretion has to be, with due respect, based on well-recognised principles. The latin maxim discretio est discernere per legem quid sit justum precisely validates this observation. It enunciates that exercising discretion is to know through law what is just. 41 In order to bring a case under Exception 4 to Section 300, the defence has to prove the presence of all the essentials of the Exception. Merely because an act of homicide is done under a fit of passion, which the court considers to be a mitigating circumstance, and because the case does not fall under any of the four Exceptions, the court should not, simply with an objective of reducing the culpability of the accused, bring it under Exception 4 notwithstanding whether all its essentials are satisfied or not. In the opinion of the researchers, these recent anomalous cases must be examined by the Hon’ble Court and the correct view should be reformulated to strengthen the law of mitigation under IPC. The Supreme Court of India is the highest Court of the land from whose judgment there is no appeal as enshrined under Article 141 of the Constitution of India. 42 Thus, ithhh it must be ensured that the cases of murder punishable under Section 302 are not converted into offences punishable under Part I or Part II of Section 304 IPC, or vice versa. 43 As the Supreme Court asserted:
“12. … courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime. The Court must not only keep in view the rights of the criminal but also the rights of the victim of the crime and the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment.” 44
* Students, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. The authors would like to express their gratitude towards Prof. B.B. Pande, Faculty of Law, Delhi University, whose suggestions proved to be critical in completion of the article.
1. Hereinafter referred to as IPC.
2. Kishore Singh v. State of M.P., (1977) 4 SCC 524 : 1977 SCC (Cri) 656
3. Alan Gledhill, Recent Developments in the Law of Homicide in England, Jaipur Law Journal, 1961 at 2.
4. J.W. Cecil Turner, (Ed.), Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law, 19th Edn. 1988, pp. 172 73.
5. Hari Singh Gour, The Penal Law of India, Vol. 3, 11th Edn. 2003, pp. 2475-76.
6. J.W. Cecil Turner, (Ed.), Russel on Crime, Vol. 1, 1st Ind. Rep. 2001, pp. 517-18.
7. Bryan A. Garner, (Ed.), Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Rep., 7th Edn. 1999, p. 1199.
8. Nga Chit Tin v. R., AIR 1939 Rang 225
9. P. Ramanatha Aiyar’s Concise Law Dictionary, 3rd Edn. 2005, p.1106.
10. Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Rep., 7th Edn. 1999, p. 1256.
11. Mancini v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 1942 AC 1 at p. 9.
12. Sarjug Prasad v. State, AIR 1959 Pat 66-69
13. AIR 1962 SC 605
14. Sikander v. State (Delhi Admn.), (1999) 3 SCC 569 : 1999 SCC (Cri) 451.
15. Hans Raj Singh v. Emperor, AIR 1946 Lah 41
16. Mahanarain v. Emperor, AIR 1946 All 19
17. Atma Singh Kahan Singh v. State, AIR 1955 Punj 191; Nafe Singh v. State of Haryana, 1973 Cri LJ 965 (P&H).
18. Adil Mohomed v. Emperor, (1909) 9 Cri LJ 32 : 8 CLJ 561-563
19. (2005) 9 SCC 315 : (2006) 1 SCC (Cri) 738
20. AIR 1967 All 204
21. (2004) 11 SCC 395 : 2004 SCC (Cri) Supp 98
22. Sikander v. State (Delhi Admn.), (1999) 3 SCC 569 : 1999 SCC (Cri) 451; Ashok Balu Mali v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1995 SC 944; Bhagwan Munjaji Pawade v. State of Maharashtra, (1978) 3 SCC 330 : 1978 SCC (Cri) 428, only sudden quarrel which was not followed by sudden fight, the deceased was unarmed, the accused caused a number of injuries to the deceased, convicted under Section 302; Pakhar Singh v. Emperor, AIR (35) 1948 Lah 75-76
23. 1999 Cri LJ 422 (Bom)
24. Venkataramana v. State of Mysore, AIR 1958 SC 255
25. State of Bihar v. Hira Lal Kejriwal, AIR 1960 SC 47; Aswini Kumar Ghose v. Arabinda Bose, AIR 1952 SC 369
26. Gurmej v. Pratap Singh, AIR 1960 SC 122
27. Rameshwar v. Jot Ram, (1976) 1 SCC 194
28. (2007) 3 SCC 89 : (2007) 2 SCC (Cri) 39
29. (1993) 4 SCC 238 : 1993 SCC (Cri) 1156
30. Ibid. at p. 244, para 10.
31. (2006) 10 SCC 524 : (2007) 1 SCC (Cri) 123
32. Ibid. at p. 529, para 11.
33. Ibid. at p. 530, para 16.
34. (2006) 4 SCC 653 : (2006) 2 SCC (Cri) 394.
35. Ibid. at pp. 656 and 657, para 9.
36. (2006) 7 SCC 391 : (2006) 3 SCC (Cri) 283
37. Ibid. at pp. 396-397, para 7.
38. Ibid. at pp. 397-398, para 9.
39. Shri Ram v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1961 SC 674
40. C.K. Thakkar, Ratanlal and Dhirajlal’s Law of Crimes, 25th Edn. 2002, p.1.
41. Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th Edn. 1997, p. 466.
42. Constitution of India, Article 141: Law declared by the Supreme Court to be binding on all courts: The law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India.
43. Pulicherla Nagaraju v. State of A.P., (2006) 11 SCC 444 : (2007) 1 SCC (Cri) 500
44. Shailesh Jasvantbhai v. State of Gujarat, (2006) 2 SCC 359 : (2006) 1 SCC (Cri) 499 at SCC p. 363, para 12.
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by Ashish Pareek*and Shivendra Singh*