Learning Outcome

Virsa Singh V. State of Punjab

1. The first thing that I got to know after reading this case was the concept of special leave.
Basically, it is a special power which has been given to the supreme court of India under
article 136 of constitution. Under this power the supreme court has power to allow an
appeal to a person whose case has been decided in any high court of this country. In this
case the special leave was only limited to deciding what was the offence that has been
committed by the convicted person keeping in mind the facts that has already been
ascertained by the Punjab High Court.
2. It is a very common mistake that the counsels commit while arguing that if an

intended act falls under the section 300 thirdly, it has to be of such a nature that it is
sufficient to cause death of a person. Has this argument been true, there would have
been no requirement of section 300 thirdly of IPC as it would have been fallen under
section 300(1).
3. A proper analysis of section 300(3) tells us that the word ‘and’ used works as a
disjunctive and not as conjunctive. Thus, the requirement of section 300(3) is that in
order to make an act amounting to murder, it must be proved that the injury caused
was the same injury which the person intended to cause and it was of such a nature
that it is sufficient to cause death in ordinary circumstances. Whether or not the
injury was sufficient to cause death of the person is something which will be
deduced by the court after looking into the facts and circumstances and is not
related in any way with the intention. The section 300(1) just requires one to prove
that the person who inflicted any injury to any other person, inflicted that injury with
the intention to cause his death.
4. To test whether an act falls under section 300(3), there are four things which must
be established-(a) A bodily injury has been caused, (b) the nature of injury or
physical characteristic of injury i.e. description of the harm relating to the part of the
body that is injured (c) the injury cause was the same injury intended to cause by
the offender and it was not accidental or unintentional. (d) the type of injury i.e.
whether or not it was sufficient to cause death in ordinary course of nature, which
can very easily and objectively be deduced from the facts.
 5. The reason why the section 300(3) is there and these requirements stated above are
required is to prevent the people to make an excuse that they didn’t know that the
injury that they were going to cause was sufficient to cause death in ordinary
circumstances. Has it not been there, it would have created a room for the people
who could have roamed free without facing any consequences of their act.

Gyarsibai W/o Jagannath Vs The State

1. the first thing that I learnt after reading this case is the fact that a judgement, even though
it has pronounced the correct verdict, can have a small fallacy when it addresses the issues
in hand not in specific terms, but rather in general terms. Even though the sessions judge
has given the interim decision correct and convicted the woman of murder of her three
children, he was unable to distinguish her act in terms of specific provisions or clauses given
under section 300 of IPC.
2. the learned judge of the high court has very correctly opined that the facts of the case very
clearly falls under section 300(4) of the IPC as the woman didn’t have any intention to kill
her children, she just jumped into the well in order to kill herself. The other three sub-
sections requires an act done with the intention to cause death or committing any act which
is likely to cause the death or causing such type of bodily injury which can result in death in
ordinary circumstances of any other person. As the facts do not suggest any of these, first
three sub-sections of section 300 can’t be applied.
3. The application of Section 300(3) requires two things- (a) if the accused knew that his act
was so imminently dangerous that in all probabilities it will cause death of the other person
(b)whether the accused can provide an excuse or reason behind him doing such an act i.e. it
may happen that a person is doing such an act which is imminently dangerous and can
cause the death of any person but he did the act in some compulsion or under a threat by
another person or because he was insane or he did the act to prevent a greater harm or
evil. The second essential can only be determined from the facts of any case and there is no
general or straightjacket formula for it.
4. In the judgement, the counsel of appellant had argued two cases where the facts of the
case were similar to his case. But here comes an important aspect of analysis. Even though
a woman is jumping in a well with her child in all the three cases, it has also to be seen if the
 woman panicked due to some reason and jumped or she was sure from the beginning to
jump inside the well or she was conscious of the fact that her jumping into the well would
kill her child. I think I got a very important learning by reading this case that one has to
analyse without any pre bias and read between the lines when there is a pre-decided
judgement or any statute is cited. There may be a case where a judge or an academician per
se can commit mistake regarding the objectives of the statutes or facts and circumstances
of the pre-decided judgement.

Ghapoo Yadav and Ors. Vs. State of M.P.

1. After reading this judgement, first thing that I learnt was about the various exceptions
given under Section 300 of IPC which have capacity to change the offence from murder to
that of culpable homicide. Although there are only two exceptions that were discussed in
the judgement, in totality IPC provides five exceptions to section 300 of IPC. The facts of
the case were of such nature that it attracted only the exception1 and exception4 to be
analysed.
2. Both exception1 and exception4 provide grounds that the death causing act was
committed without any kind of premeditation. The difference lies in the fact that the first
exception involves those acts of the accused which were done after losing his self-control
in totality whereas in case of fourth exception, the person loses his self-control out of any
instance of passion and committed the act which he would not have committed had his
capacity to reason wasn’t affected with the instance of passion. In the first exception, the
injury caused will be a direct result of the loss of total self-control while in the fourth one,
the origin of the dispute does not matter. It just keeps into consideration the fact that the
sudden fight ensued between two persons and it caused one of them to lose his ordinary
reason and made him do a certain act that he would not have done otherwise.
3. The term ‘sudden fight’ given in the fourth exception means that there is some kind of
mutual provocation on the part of both the parties and the harm caused can’t be traced
very easily to a single party’s attempt to provocate. In this respect, the fourth exception
keeps both the parties provocating each other on the same balance and does not blame
any of them unilaterally. There wasn’t any sort of premeditation between the parties to
 ensue a fight and even if a party has started it, it wouldn’t have caused any serious injury if
the other party hasn’t put an effort to aggravate it. This is also a difference between
exception 1 and exceptio4. Had this difference not been there, the very existence of
exception4 would have been irrelevant.
4. The learned judge with the help of the provision gave a test to decide in what
circumstances, one can claim the exception 4 under section 300 of IPC. These were (a) if
the death of the person was caused without any pre-meditation. (b) the death was caused
within the meaning of a sudden fight given above (c) the death was caused to the person
with whom the sudden-fight happened. (d) the offender didn’t take any sort of undue
advantage or acted in a cruel manner while causing the death of the person.
5. It must also be noted that the term ‘fight’ mentioned in the exception 4 hasn’t been
defined anywhere in the IPC. The judge gave a purposive definition by holding that a fight
is a combat between two or more person with or without weapons. Although it is not
possible to provide any general definition, the word ‘sudden’ implies no premeditation and
it is completely a matter of facts of the case upon which it is to be decided.
6. The infliction and nature of the injury proves the intention of the accused who have
inflicted the injury. For example- in this case, as the infliction of the injury wasn’t in any
unusual or cruel manner, the appellant was allowed to take the benefit of exception 4.

S.N. Hussain Vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh

1. The first thing that I got to know after reading this case was that if there are a lot of
witnesses in case and the lower court has relied upon only few fitness to base its
judgement, then the appellant has a ground of contention in the higher court that the
witnesses do not prove satisfactorily the charges levelled against him.
2. Although it is a very common notion that Rashness and Negligence are same, in the eyes of
law they are two different concepts. Rashness is basically committing a dangerous act
without giving any thought or being reckless or indifferent towards the consequences of the
act. Negligence results because of a failure on the part of a person to exercise reasonable
care and precaution based on ordinary prudence, which was his duty to exercise in the
given situation in order to prevent an injury from happening to either public or an
individual.
3. When SC was pronouncing the judgement, it brought out a mistake that High court has
committed regarding reading of the evidence, which resulted in a wrongful conviction of the
 accused. As there were a lot of passengers who were travelling while the bus collided, some
of them claimed that they did try to alert the conductor and driver about the train was
coming. There were also some passengers who negated these witnesses and said that there
was no alert from any of the passengers. The SC said that even if we accept the testimony of
regarding the alert that has been given, it is not something which can lead to conclusive
conviction. It has also to be seen whether the alert given were proper in time that it
provided a sufficient chance to driver to prevent the collision of the bus and train keeping in
mind the length and structure of the bus. The high court has considered only the first part
of testimony i.e. the alert was given by the passengers to the driver, but failed to
considered second part of testimony which is equally important to convict a person.
4. Also, the high court was expecting a more than reasonable precaution on the part of driver
to prevent the mishappening given the fact that the crossing was a manned crossing. Even
though it is true that the reasonable care and precaution depends upon the facts of the
case, what high court was expecting the driver was something which seems to be
unreasonable