Pranav B Prem

The Supreme Court of India, on January 28, reiterated that in order to convict accused persons under Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it must be established that they had a preplanned act and shared a common intention. The Court, while allowing appeals filed by police constables against their conviction for murder, emphasized that mere presence at the scene of the crime is not sufficient to attract Section 34 IPC.

A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Augustine George Masih observed: "By now it is a settled principle of law that for convicting the accused with the aid of Section 34 of the IPC the prosecution must establish prior meetings of minds. It must be established that all the accused had preplanned and shared a common intention to commit the crime with the accused who has actually committed the crime. It must be established that the criminal act has been done in furtherance of the common intention of all the accused."

Case Background

The case arose from an incident on November 15, 2004, in which police officers attempted to stop a car based on information that illegal liquor was being smuggled in it. When the vehicle did not stop, Head Constable Jagdish Singh (accused no. 1) fired a shot, which struck a co-passenger and resulted in her death. The husband of the deceased filed a complaint, leading to the arrest and prosecution of the accused officers. The Trial Court convicted accused no.1 and sentenced him to life imprisonment under Section 302 IPC, while acquitting the remaining accused (Constable Surendra Singh, Constable Surat Singh, and Ashad Singh Negi) for lack of sufficient evidence proving their common intention. However, the High Court reversed the acquittal and convicted all the accused under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC, leading to the present appeal before the Supreme Court.

High Court's Interference with Acquittal

The Supreme Court reiterated that interference with an acquittal should be limited to cases where there is "patent perversity," omission of material evidence, or when the only possible conclusion from the evidence is the guilt of the accused. The Court referred to its earlier decision in Babu Sahebagouda Rudragoudar and others v. State of Karnataka, which outlined the scope of interference in acquittals: "It could thus be seen that it is a settled legal position that the interference with the finding of acquittal recorded by the learned trial judge would be warranted by the High Court only if the judgment of acquittal suffers from patent perversity; that the same is based on a misreading/omission to consider material evidence on record; and that no two reasonable views are possible and only the view consistent with the guilt of the accused is possible from the evidence available on record."

The Supreme Court noted that the Trial Court had considered multiple factors before acquitting the appellants, including the fact that they were acting under the command of their senior officer and that there was only a single witness identifying one of them. "However, this well-reasoned finding of the learned trial court has been upset by the High Court on the ground that the remaining three accused were sitting in the same vehicle along with accused No.1-Jagdish Kumar was sufficient to convict them with the aid of Section 34 of the IPC."

Common Intention and Prior Meeting of Minds

The Court emphasized that to convict an accused under Section 34 IPC, prior meeting of minds and common intention must be clearly established. It relied on several judgments, including Madhusudan and others v. State of Madhya Pradesh, Ezajhussain Sabdarhussain and another v. State of Gujarat, and Gadadhar Chandra v. State of West Bengal, to reaffirm this principle. In the present case, the prosecution failed to establish that the appellants shared a common intention with accused no.1 to fire at the deceased. The Trial Court had correctly found that the mental involvement of the appellants in the crime was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, the Supreme Court held that their conviction under Section 34 IPC was unsustainable.

Verdict

Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the appeals, setting aside the High Court's order and restoring the acquittal of the accused-appellants. The Court held: "The appeals are allowed. The judgment and order of the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital in Government Appeal No. 100 of 2008 is quashed and aside. The judgment and order dated 6th September 2006 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Dehradun in Sessions Trial No.50 of 2005 is affirmed."

Cause Title: CONSTABLE 907 SURENDRA SINGH & ANR Vs STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

Case No: Criminal Appeal No. 355 OF 2013

Date: January-28-2025

Bench: Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih

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