Criminal Law Cases

1876

Reg. v. Govinda

Culpable homicide or murder?

A husband knocked his wife down, put one knee on her chest and struck her face two or three times, causing her death. Justice Melvill of the Bombay High Court used the case to explain the difference between culpable homicide (Section 299 IPC) and murder (Section 300), holding it to be culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The explanation remains the starting point for every student of criminal law.

• Bombay High Court, Justice Melvill.

1958

Virsa Singh v. State of Punjab

Section 300 "thirdly"

Justice Vivian Bose laid down the test for murder under clause "thirdly" of Section 300 IPC: the prosecution must prove that a bodily injury was present, that the accused intended to inflict that particular injury, and that the injury was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. It is not necessary to prove that the accused intended to kill.

1947

Pulukuri Kottaya v. Emperor

Discovery under Section 27

The Privy Council held that under Section 27 of the Evidence Act only that part of an accused's statement to the police that distinctly relates to the fact discovered is admissible. "The fact discovered embraces the place from which the object is produced and the knowledge of the accused as to this." The rule continues in Section 23 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam.

• Privy Council decision.

1984

Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra

The five golden principles

Acquitting a man accused of poisoning his wife, the Supreme Court laid down the "five golden principles" (panchsheel) for conviction on circumstantial evidence: the circumstances must be fully established, consistent only with guilt, conclusive, exclude every hypothesis except guilt, and form a chain so complete that there is no reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with innocence.

• Known as the "panchsheel" of circumstantial evidence.

1980

Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab

The "rarest of rare" doctrine

A five-judge bench upheld the death penalty for murder, but held that life imprisonment is the rule and death the exception, to be imposed only in the "rarest of rare" cases when the alternative is "unquestionably foreclosed", after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the crime and the criminal. Justice P.N. Bhagwati dissented, holding the death penalty unconstitutional.

• "Rarest of rare" doctrine.
• Dissent: P.N. Bhagwati.