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LAW OF CRIMES – IPC (INDIAN PENAL CODE)

CASE COMMENT
JOGINDER SINGH AND ANR. V. STATE OF PUNJAB

AIR 1979 SC 1867

INTRODUCTION:

This case of Joginder Singh and another’s V. State of Punjab 1was a criminal appeal which
was decided on august 17, 1979 by the high court of Punjab and Haryana under the judge
bench of D.A Desai, O. Chinampa Reddy, R.S Sarkaria. This case was a re-appealed case in
the supreme court for which the initial decision of the sessions court convicted the accused
and those accused are the appellants in this case before the high court seeking for the
dropping of the criminal charges against them. This case is mainly focusing on the sec.302 of
Indian penal code, 1860 which deals with the punishment for murder were the accused were
charged with murders of two persons with a common intention that deals with sec.34, of IPC.
The counsel argued that the killing of one victim never accounted as murder but it will be
constituted as culpable homicide under sec.299 of IPC. There are three persons being accused
on the charges of murder and culpable homicide and they accused seek for the acquittal from
their charges. The crux of the case was quite controversial as the facts of the case tend to
remain in light of ambiguity as per the prosecution side and the defence side. This case
commentary for this case will focus upon differentiation upon charges indicted against the
accused the detailed analysis of the judges to arrive at the decision of concluding the partial
acceptance of the appeal made in the high court and the legal provision relating to the case
will analysed and decision of the court will be critically interpreted on the primary
understanding of the case. The main issue of this case will be interpreted in a descriptive
manner and the judges’ critique over the facts and the issue with respect to the appeal and the
way of the reasoning for the judgement will be analysed and derive at asserting conclusion.

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AIR 1979 SC 1876
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BACKGROUND OF THE CASE:

The mere facts of the case have a lot of ambiguous nature being consecrated in the case as
there are misunderstanding while asserting the facts that was been put forth by both appellant
and the respondent to come to the court to have a prefixed of facts to the court by the judges.

The primary facts being with accused Joginder Singh and Balwinder Singh who along-with
their father Kishan Singh were tried for the murders of Kuldip Singh and Rupinder Singh, are
the appellants in this appeal by special leave. The facts from the side of prosecution was that
the dispute arose on the day 24th February 1974, when one of the victims, Rupinder Singh
teased Pammi the daughter of Kishan singh as a result the father kishan singh and his sons
joginder singh and balwinder singh went and gave a beating to Rupinder singh. On the next
day, the trio of kishan, joginder and balwinder went to the house of Chanchal singh, father
of Rupinder singh and the family of Chanchal singh with his wife Pritam Kaur and his
daughters were present at the house and the trio of the accused abusing to the house of
Rupinder. Joginder Singh was armed with a small kirpan, Kishan Singh with a gandasi and
Balwinder Singh with a stick. They said that they would take away the daughter of Chanchal
Singh and that she should be brought out. “The womenfolk got frightened. Pritam Kaur took
her daughters inside the house and bolted the door. Hearing the noise Kuldip Singh and
Surinder Singh, nephews of Chanchal Singh, who live above 50 karms away came to the
house of Chanchal Singh. Kuldip Singh went forward with folded hands and requested the
accused to pardon them. Joginder Singh immediately gave a blow on the neck of Kuldip
Singh with the kirpan in his hands. Kuldip Singh fell down. Kishan Singh was also
attempting to give a gandasi blow to Kuldip Singh when Surinder Singh picked up a gandasi
which was there and dealt a blow on the head of Kishan Singh. Meanwhile Rupinder Singh
started running towards the fields. Joginder Singh and Balwinder Singh chased him abusing.
Rupinder Singh jumped into a well in order to save himself.” 2 The three accused persons then
ran away from the scene. Surinder Singh and Chanchal Singh went near the well. Rupinder
Singh was not to be seen. Surinder Singh then went to the Police Station, Saddar, Patiala,
about thirteen miles from the village and gave the report of FIR at 4.15 p.m. Thereafter PW
14, the Sub-Inspector proceeded with the investigation. The police found out the bodies of
Kuldip and Rupinder singh with serious injuries in their body and Rupinder was taken out
from well in a dead state and there was a head injury and multiple bruises on his back, with
the medical examination the injury of Kuldip was heinous and must have caused
2
AIR 1979 SC 1876, Criminal Appeal No. 226 of 1978, https://www.lawyerservices.in/
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instantaneous death and with Rupinder the blow on his head made him unconscious and he
downed in the well and died of asphyxia. On the FIR being filed and the investigation made
the accused were arrested but kishan singh due to his injury on head was admitted in hospital
leading him an injury in skull. But the accused denied the set of facts and included that in
connection with the teasing incident that took place on February 24, 1974, there was a
Panchayat on 25th morning at which it was decided that Rupinder Singh should do to his
sister whatever he had done to Pammi. Kishan Singh was going on the Phirni with his kirpan
when Kuldip Singh came there with gandasi. Kuldip Singh gave a gandasi blow on Kishan
Singh's head whereupon Kishan Singh took out his kirpan and gave a blow to Kuldip Singh.
Thereafter Kuldip Singh ran away and he returned to his house. Thereby stating that first only
Kuldip attacked kishan and the rest done to him was just retribution and the main target was
Rupinder singh but the intervention by Kuldip and surinder was unexpected which resulted in
the death of Kuldip, but the accused said that it was the facts from the prosecution was not
true only theirs is true. But the sessions court judge rejected the facts of accused and only
accepts the facts of the prosecution as the facts was rational and has the element of truth with
respect to the statement in the FIR copy. The counsel for the defence tried to prove only their
set of facts were true but the high court denied it but only accepting the fact that the death of
Rupinder cannot be said as homicidal, as Rupinder Singh ran from his house towards the
fields because was followed, apparently chased by Joginder Singh and Balwinder Singh.
“According to PW 1(surinder), Rupinder Singh jumped into a well 'in order to save himself'.
Joginder Singh and Balwinder Singh were about 15 to 20 feet from Rupinder Singh when he
jumped into the well. It is not the case of the prosecution nor is there any evidence to justify
the fact as his one was ambiguous and his death cannot be considered as murder but joginder
was convicted for murder of Kuldip under s.302 IPC, read with s.34 of IPC while balwinder
was acquitted from the charges held on him was the decision of the court making the appeal
partly allowed but not the whole appeal was allowed.”3

3
https://www.lawyerservices.in/Joginder-Singh-and-Another-Versus-State-of-Punjab-1979-08-17
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ANALYSIS OF THE CASE:

The analysis of the case will mainly deal with the decision of the court based on the judgment
and the critical interpretation on the understanding of the case will be mentioned. The main
crux of the judgment that will be commented with respect to the judgement and the legal
opinion on the subject matter will be specified. The main analysis of the case will deal with
primary issues that deeply criticised in the judgment

 The first issue put forth in the analysis is that the main issue of making the crux of
the case was the committing of murder is an offence against the state and the
explaining the process that amounts to offence of murder is defined in sec.300 of
IPC ,1860 that,
“Murder-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—
-if it is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the offender knows to
be likely to cause the death of the person to whom the harm is caused, or—
-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-if the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous
that it must, in all probability, cause death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause
death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing
death or such injury as aforesaid.”4 The offence of murder was committed only by
joginder singh because with the intention of getting him hurt may cause death and the
knowing the consequence of the fact he attacked Kuldip leading to his death can be
charged with murder and its punishment will be provided by sec.302 of IPC, but in
the judgement the conviction of joginder was also read with s.34 of IPC, which talks
about the intention were it says about acts of several person with common intention
but all others were acquitted from the charge except him because the other accused
intention was not defined and was not stated clearly on this case leaving the intention
aspect of the murder in question with joint liability.
 The second issue can be dealt with ambiguity that existed in the facts of the case that
as the issue of the facts of the appellants was not accepted by the court denying the
facts of the accused and accepting the facts of the prosecution only by checking the
similarity of the FIR copy and the medical examination of the victims but only the test
4
Central Government Act, Section 300 in The Indian Penal Code, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/626019/
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of subjectivity was been completed but the test of objectivity was not clearly
examined as the mere facts but the examination of eye witness was only followed up
with the side of prosecution and the fact that the accused sister being harassed by the
victim and the level of truth of the panchayat fact was subjected to the sec.313 of
criminal procedure code were the examination of the fact lacked clarity including the
lodging of FIR as the time was not precisely mentioned. And also, that the main
witness surinder accepted that he attacked kishan leading to grievous injury which
was not clearly given justice or the fact was ignored
 The main issue is to addressed as that appeal was made to acquittal of the accused was
mainly based on the question of whether the death of main victim Rupinder was
questioned under the fact that the death was consider to be homicidal was been
questioned by the judges as the death of him was defined as culpable homicide under
sec.299 of IPC,1860. The matter of homicide was been question because there was
lack of evidence to prove it, when an offence to called as culpable homicide it should
full fill the aspects of the elements of crime of means rea i.e. the mental aspect of the
crime to be declared as the intention was clear to cause a bodily injury that ay cause
death , but in the case the facts only state that the accused were chasing the victim and
to save himself from the accused jumped into the well was put forth by the
prosecution. But the act of jumping into the well was a voluntary act by Rupinder
himself and there no clear fact that the accused attacked the person that caused him
death was plus there was no clarity that only jumping into the well to save himself
was the only option of the victim because the consequences of the act done by the
accused was not enough to prove the death of Rupinder was due to them and since
due to lack of clarity in the evidence and hence the death of the main victim was not
held as homicidal clearing the criminal charges on the accused , but for the death of
Kuldip singh only joginder was charged under sec.302 with sec.34 of IPC and the
other accused was acquitted from all the criminal charges.
 The complete case was a contrary on my point of view, as the charge of criminal
conspiracy under sec.120 of IPC was not mentioned as a legal provision in this case
because there were more people with the same intention to do an unlawful act can
also be observed and however the accused as whole committed the crime but the joint
liability fact was not considered as the intention of the accused varied and not
everything was done as a whole part of crime. The concepts of declaration of
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punishment for crimes, and the element of crimes like actus reus, mens rea and the
point of differentiation in the concept of murder and homicide was critically
interpreted and as a result of burden of proof and other aspects made this contrary
judgment of the appeal partially accepted as the matter of legality and morality can
be considered for this decision of the court.

CONCLUSION:

The judgement that was unanimously declared only had the part of the procedure of the
hearing by the facts and evidence of the case but the element of TRUTH was been still left in
the question as no procedural law seeks for the test of objective truth is confined only to the
facts and circumstantial proof, but no one except the parties know what really happened
because facts and evidence at sometimes can be manipulative and falsified which is not
reviewed in most of the cases which is still a drawback but that is very subjective term that
can be considered as it quiet impossible to be known. The decision has its own reasoning for
the issues of the case, but on my opinion the facts of the case based on the court’s
interpretation had a lagging to lack of evidence as the proof is mandatory for the conviction
or acquittal of a person. The case can only provide justice to one of the parties for the other
the matter of justice is always an ambiguous aspect of an undefined word, but this case had a
difference in partially accepting the appeal and denying it made it whether the both parties
are compensated with justice.

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THANK YOU

SUBMITTED BY:

ABHISHEK.S

BC0190002