Dr.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL

LAW UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

ACADEMIC SESSION:

2017 – 18

INDIAN PENAL CODE

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Mr. Malay Pandey Pranav Bhansali
Assistant Professor (Law) 160101109- Sec-B
B.A. LL.B (Hons.)

ii
 CONTENTS
I PRELUDE..........................................................................................................................1
II GRAVE AND SUDDEN PROVOCATION......................................................................2
2009....................................................................................................................................2
2010....................................................................................................................................2
2011....................................................................................................................................3
2012....................................................................................................................................5
2014....................................................................................................................................7
III EPILOGUE.....................................................................................................................10

iii
 I PRELUDE

Criminal law includes strict development of corrective statutes for the blamed. This is on
account of the major guideline fundamental the law is that each individual denounced is
ventured to be pure unless demonstrated blameworthy. The above has been remembered in
the examination of cases seeing grave and sudden incitement as a protection.

Grave and sudden incitement has not been characterized in the IPC and is one of the 5
'extraordinary exemptions' (other than general special cases recorded in Chapter IV) that
work as moderating components to the offense of murder under Sec 300. It requires the
denounced to demonstrate that the incitement got was grave and sudden, prompted loss of
poise and he caused the demise of the individual giving the incitement in that perspective
gave that he didn't look for the incitement as a reason to execute or the incitement was not a
consequence of the privilege to private safeguard or the demonstration of an open worker. In
the event that the passing of some other individual was caused in that perspective, it must be
either an error or a mishap. The majority of the above are to be chosen the certainties of the
case.

This overview thinks about judgments of the Supreme Court under the previously mentioned
barrier for a 5 year time frame from 2009 – 2014 to pay special mind to patterns in the impact
on sentences granted to the charged. The year 2013 did not have any important cases under
the said exemption and has been as needs be prohibited.

1
 II GRAVE AND SUDDEN PROVOCATION
Grave and sudden provocation is the first of the five exceptions hung to Sec. 300 i.e., Murder
and as was witnessed in the cases studied, if successfully proven lessened the punishment till
the extent provided in Sec 304, Indian Penal Code.

2009
The plea of grave and sudden provocation was pleaded in a lot cases but the Court was
vigilant in allowing appeals on this ground. In Mohd. Asif v. State of Uttaranchal1, the
Supreme court refused the appeal on grounds of grave and sudden provocation on the
deceased’s dying declaration that the only friction between him and the accused had been an
altercation that happened 4 days before to the stabbing thus, asserting the principle that where
the declaration is reliable, it can be used to convict the accused. It also acknowledged that
merely because there had been a single stab, that fact does not automatically bring the case
under Part I Sec 300.

The Court also said no to this defence in the case of Aasari Krishna Murthy @ Krishna v.
State of A.P2 wherein the spouse of the accused had started living with the deceased even him
being married and a week later, he was stabbed in the chest by the accused and his men while
having food. On hearing the testimonials, the Court ruled that though the fact of his wife’s
desertion was grave it could not be sudden and thus, upheld his life sentence.

In the case of Raj Kumar v. State of Maharashtra3, the Court yet again quashed the appeal for
lessening of sentence due to grave and sudden provocation by putting the events under the
first provision to the exception. Here, the deceased had filed for maintenance under Sec. 125
of the Cr.P.C and the he was coercing her to withdraw her case. When she repeatedly refused,
he went to her flat and struck her with a stone rolling pin on her head in effect, pursuing the
so called provocation from his wife.

1
2009 Cri LJ 2789 (SC).
2
(2009) 17 SCC 462.
3
(2009) 15 SCC 292.

2
2010
“In 2010, the Supreme Court adjudicated the case of Arun Raj v. Union of India & Ors. 4 and
ruled that once the contents for punishing an act under part II of Sec 304 were established, it
was irrelevant whether the death was caused by a one-single blow or multiple blows.”

“Here, the accused and deceased, both working in the Army, had a fight the previous day due
to the deceased recurring abusing the accused with the word ‘gandu’ . The next afternoon,
when the deceased was sleeping on his cot in the barracks, the accused came up to him, took
out a kitchen knife from his dhoti and stabbed the deceased in the chest. He was convicted for
murder and sentenced to imprisonment for life and also dismissed from service – which was
upheld by the higher courts.”

The accused appealed in the Supreme Court advocating that he had stabbed the deceased in a
state of provocation and thus exception 1 to Sec 300 applied in his case. The Court unearthed
the scope of the ‘doctrine of provocation’ 5 as stated in multiple English Law cases and
reiterated the essentials for successfully pleading the defense of grave and sudden
provocation but held that he had used a knife sharp enough to cause fatality, waited and
conspired for an entire day and stabbed the deceased in the chest thus, amounting mens rea to
kill to his deed6 and upheld his life sentence under Sec 302 for murder.

2011
In the case of State of Punjab v. Jagtar Singh & Ors.7, the Supreme Court held that the
accused had been below the age of 25 years when they killed the deceased and had already
served a jail term of 18 years since their conviction by the Trial Court. Thus, it took in
account age of the accused and term served as attenuating factors and upheld the High
Court’s reduction sentence of 5 years of imprisonment under Part I, Sec 304 as the Court. In
the given evidence and facts presented before it, the Court also accepted his appeal under
grave and sudden provocation.

4
(2010) 6 SCC 457.
5
Id. at 463.
6
Supra note 1 at 464.
7
AIR 2011 SC 3028.

3
“The facts of this case were set up after a lot of discussion by the High Court and they are –
the deceased sneaked into the house of the accused and had sexual intercourse with the sister
of the accused. They were caught in the act by the accused brothers and murdered in a fit of
grave and sudden provocation. Their bodies were found the next morning in the courtyard of
the accused’s house.

The counsel on behalf of the State also argued that reducing the sentences of the accused so
drastically was unjust as it was a heinous crime of honour killing but the Court considered the
age of the accused at the time of commission of the offence a mitigating factor which
trumped the above cause and upheld the decree of the High Court, effectively dismissing the
appeal of the State.”

The landmark judgment in Virsa Singh v. State of Punjab8 which has been repeatedly rested
with trust on by the Supreme Court was reiterated in the case of Veeran & Ors. v. State of
M.P9 in order to clear the differences between sec. 299 and third and fourth clauses of Sec
300. In the judgment the court allowed the appeal of the accused and sentenced them under
Part I Sec 304 for 15 years – a sentence that they had already spent and were thus, released.

The accused were convicted in the first under Sec 300 for the murder of a certain Daddu
whose sister had become pregnant due to the accused and her family was branded outcastes
by the Panchayat. Thus, there existed rancour between their families and one night when the
accused and his brother in law were going to their house, the wives of the accused started
abusing and cursing them which transformed quickly into a clash between the deceased and
accused. The deceased being unarmed was severely injured by the lathis, farsas and gandasas
used by the accused and succumbed to his injuries.

“The Court held that from the facts of the case the absence of common intention to cause
death was established along with lack of premeditation. Moreover, they were unaware that
the injuries caused by them were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.10”

“It is respectfully submitted that the facts clearly show that the provocation did not come
from the deceased. Instead, it was the wives of the accused themselves who instigated the
fight between the two parties by abusing the deceased and his family for their loss of
reputation. Moreover, on hearing the altercation, the accused came out of their houses armed

8
AIR 1959 SC 465.
9
2011 Cri LJ 2688 (SC).
10
Id. at 2691.

4
with dangerous instruments like gandasas and farsas and attacked the deceased. Thus, it is
really not obvious as to how their attack could be justified through grave and sudden
provocation as it can be clearly seen that there was no provocation from the deceased who
only asked the ladies to stop abusing his family – an act that is neither grave nor sudden nor
provocative enough for a reasonable person in that environment to lose control over
himself.”

“The parameters to be looked into while deciding the question of culpable homicide or
murder were emphasized again the case of Mangesh v. State of Maharashtra11 where the
accused injured the deceased with a knife on seeing him with his sister at around 9 – 10 in the
night due to which he later died. The accused and deceased had had confrontations previously
regarding the love affair of which the accused strongly disapproved. The Court on the basis
of absence of prior knowledge of their meeting and the superficial wounds given with the
knife was satisfied on the count of absence of intention, being provoked by the sight of the
deceased with his sister at such an odd hour of the night12. He was sentenced under Part I of
Sec 304 for causing injury – one stab in the chest that led to death – likely to cause death for
rigorous imprisonment of 10 years.”

2012
In Sukhlal Sarkar v. Union of India & Ors.13 wherein an on – duty officer of the Border
Security Force (BSF) had shot a colleague at point blank range for waking him up from sleep.
The General Security Force Court had convicted him of murder and sentenced him to
rigorous imprisonment for life which was upheld by the High Court. The accused pleaded
that the deceased had slapped and pushed him which provoked him to shoot. The Court
however, dismissed his appeal in the following words: 14

“Under Exception 1 to Section 300, provocation must be grave and sudden must
have by gravity and suddenness deprived the Appellant of the power of self-control,
and not merely to set up provocation as a defence. It is not enough to show that the
Appellant was provoked into loosing (sic) his control, must be shown that the
provocation was such as would in the circumstances have caused the reasonable
man to loose (sic) his self-control. A person could claim the benefit of provocation

11
2011 Cri LJ 1166 (SC).
12
Id. at 1167.
13
2012 Cri LJ 3032 (SC).
14
Id. at 3033.

5
 has to show that the provocation was grave and sudden that he was deprived of
power of self-control and that he caused the death of a person while he was still in
that state of mind……Assuming that the deceased had slapped and pushed the
Appellant, such an action of the deceased could not be characterized as grave and
sudden, so as to provoke the Appellant to fire at the deceased killing him at the
spot.”

“In Budhi Singh v. State of H.P15, the Supreme Court analyzed in depth the differences
between murder and culpable homicide through multiple precedents of the Court when faced
with the question whether to convict under culpable homicide or murder. It stressed that the
defence of grave and sudden provocation could only be established by a thorough reading of
the facts and the provocation could be an act or a series of acts done by the deceased to the
accused resulting in inflicting of injury.”

“The facts of the case were that a certain Balu Singh had two sons, the accused and the
deceased. One fine day, the deceased came home drunk and began to fight with his father, in
the course of which he struck his own father on the head with a lathi. The father called out to
his other son for help and the accused came out with a tobru (axe) and hit the accused on the
head due to which he soon died. The lower courts sentenced him to life imprisonment under
Sec 302.”

“However, the Supreme Court emphasized (by examining precedents) that premeditation and
intention to kill are two conditions that must be fulfilled before convicting an accused under
Sec 302 and in the present case it was obvious that there was no evidence of prior animosity
between the brothers and the instrument being regularly used and available in that community
which ruled out any premeditated intention to kill. Also, the accused found his father being ill
treated, beaten up and bad mouthed by his own brother which makes it a fitting case for the
defence of grave and sudden provocation. For the above reasons, the Court sentenced the
accused to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine under Part I of Sec. 304 as he had
clearly caused injury that he knew would be likely to cause the death of his brother.”

The case of Rampal Singh v. State of U.P16 was an appeal from the Allahabad High Court
where the facts were that the accused and deceased in the case were first cousins and served
as Lance Naiks in the Indian Army. The deceased, when on leave, had erected a ‘ladauri’
(boundary) on his land and when the appellant arrived home soon after, he demolished the
structure and dumped garbage on his brother’s land. His objection led to a quarrel and scuffle
15
(2012) 13 SCC 663.
16
2012 Cri LJ 3765 (SC).

6
between the two which was ended by intervention of their family members. Thereafter, the
appellant went to the roof a neighbour’s house with his rifle and took aim at the deceased
who asked him if he had the courage to shoot him. Upon this question, the accused shot him
in the abdomen due to which he died soon after.

“The court again went into the distinction between Sec 299 and 300 and cited the case of
State of Andhra Pradesh v. Rayavarapu Punayya and Anr.17 which distinguished between
murder as culpable homicide of the first degree, punishable under Sec 302, culpable homicide
of the second degree punishable under Part I of Sec 304 and culpable homicide of the third
degree punishable under Part II of Sec 304.18 This case also gave three questions that the
Court must ask in order to clearly establish which of the two sections the act came under. The
Court also emphasized that in order to correctly place the Act under Sec 304, it would have to
look into evidence regarding the weapon used, the nature of the act, nature of injuries,
existence of premeditation and to some extent the motive for committing the crime.”19

“The counsel for appellant argued that there was no previous enmity between the two
brothers, thus no premeditation while the counsel for the State argued that there was no
connection between the killing and the fight that had happened earlier because the accused
went to the roof after they had been separated and the fight had been stopped through
intervention of family members. The Court however ruled that the accused had been
provoked to fire by the question of the deceased but being employed in the Army he knew the
consequences of firing a rifle and had experience of firing. Thus, he was sentenced under Part
I of Sec 304 for culpable homicide for 10 years of R.I and a fine.”

“It is respectfully submitted that for the defence to apply, the accused should not have sought
the provocation in order to justify his act. It is clear from the facts that it was because he
stood on the roof pointing a rifle at the deceased that he asked the question whether the
accused had the courage to shoot him.”

17
AIR 1977 SC 45: 1977 Cri LJ 1 (SC).
18
Id.
19
Supra note 16 at 3772.

7
2014
The case of Chaitu & Ors. v. State of U.P20 was an appeal from the Allahabad High Court
where the six accused persons – all cousins were sentenced under Sec 302/ 34 for life besides
also being sentenced for rioting and voluntarily causing harm under Sec(s) 149, 323 of the
IPC for the murder of a certain Rajmani.

“The accused and deceased had adjoining fields that were irrigated by the same canal. One
day, the deceased diverted all the water to his field which was objected to by one of the
accused and a fight ensued which was ended by timely intervention. However, a few minutes
later, all the accused came to the field armed with lathis, axe etc. on learning about the
incident only to find that the deceased had diverted the canal to his field again. This resulted
in a fight between the accused and the deceased and his uncle that was stopped by
intervention of the other neighbours, during which the deceased received an injury on the
head, besides others. He succumbed next morning while on the way to the hospital.”

“The Supreme Court while considering the accused’s defence of sudden fight (Exception IV
to Sec 300) agreed that an altercation had escalated into a sudden fight during the course of
which the deceased received the injury that caused his death but on considering the
circumstances and situation in its entirety, decided that the first exception of grave and
sudden provocation would apply without elaborating or providing reasons for the same. The
accused were convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced under
Part II of Sec 304 for 5 years while the punishments for other convictions were upheld.”

In the case of Pundappa Yankappa Pujari v. State of Karnataka21, the Supreme Court
dismissed the appeal under exception 1 to Sec 300, holding that it was clear from the facts of
the case that there was no grave and sudden provocation. Again, the Court emphasized on
“affirming, establishing, interpreting and analyzing facts in the context of the defence pleaded
by the accused. For a major part of the judgment, precedents of the Court were quoted to
establish and reaffirm the principle that if there is more than one interpretation possible for a
set of facts, it is not right for the appellate court to impose its view by overturning the
conclusion of the lower court unless the view taken by the lower court is completely perverse
or unreasonable.”

20
MANU/SC/0405/2014.
21
MANU/SC/0563/2014.

8
“In the present case, there occurred a verbal dispute between the deceased and accused on the
issue of the boundary line of their adjoining lands, in the course of which, the deceased bent
down to put the boundary stone back in place when, he was repeatedly struck on the neck by
the accused with an axe due to which he died the following day. The High Court and the
Supreme Court found no incident of provocation offered by the deceased that was sufficient
to make the accused lose control and kill the deceased. Furthermore, the accused were the
initiators of the altercation between the two parties.”

“In the case of Saroj @ Suraj Panchal and Anr. v. State of West Bengal22, the Supreme Court
allowed the appeal of the accused under exception 1 of Sec 300.The accused had disapproved
of the love affair between his daughter and the deceased and finding him one night in the first
floor of their house with their daughter, dragged him down the stairs and hit him with lathis
and iron rods. The deceased succumbed to his injuries the next day.”

“Finding the case similar to State of Punjab v. Jagtar Singh and Ors23 and Mangesh v. State
of Maharashtra24, the Court stated that no one would tolerate an intruder in their house in the
night hours and concluded that the death was caused by acts done with the intention of
causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death 25 and sentenced them to 7 years rigorous
imprisonment under Sec 304 Part 1.”

22
MANU/SC/0281/2014.
23
2011 Cri LJ 1166 (SC).
24
AIR 2011 SC 3028.
25
Indian Penal Code, S. 304 Part I.

9
 III EPILOGUE
As specified before, this overview included investigation of Supreme Court judgments
between the years 2009 – 2014. The Court not just repeated the basic conditions to be
demonstrated keeping in mind the end goal to effectively argue the guard of grave and
sudden incitement yet in addition broke down the contrasts between Sec(s) 300 and 299 – an
essential factor that specifically influences the sentence conceded. It is watched that the
denounced argued decrease in sentence from Sec 302 to Part I or II of Sec 304 IPC through
special case I to Sec. 300 in all cases however the Court permitted the interest in situations
where the realities indicated example of incitement. Be that as it may, there were additionally
situations where the Court did not give purposes behind permitting the interest or in the
creator's feeling gave an off base thinking.

All around the sentences granted in all cases entirely took after the arrangements of Sec 304
with essentially no deviation at all and rebuffed the blamed as needs be. The age of the
blamed at the ideal opportunity for submitting the offense, the impact of condition i.e., his
social, social, financial conditions, while applying the sensible man test and occurrences of
past ill will went about as alleviating factors in the cases while indicting and condemning the
denounced for chargeable murder under Sec. 304.

The Fifth Law Commission Report prescribed that diverse disciplines for at fault crime based
on goal or absence of it be supplanted by a typical, most extreme discipline of 10 years
detainment with fine. One reason given was that life detainment – the most extreme
discipline given under Part I of Sec 304 for deliberate crime – has never been granted.
Nonetheless, in a 2011 judgment, the Supreme Court granted a discipline of 15 years
detainment to the blamed – not the same as life detainment but rather certainly more than the
10 years that the Commission discovered normal.

10
Along these lines, the pattern in condemning (or its absence) under Exception I to Sec 300
demonstrates that the areas in the IPC in regards to grave and sudden incitement and the
resultant sentence for punishable murder have kept pace with the mores and necessities of the
circumstances and don't require any major redoing in their dialect or arrangements.

11