The Supreme Court while considering a criminal appeal in a case of attempted murder upheld the conviction under section 307 IPC stating that the accused can be convicted for crimes through their individual acts in case group conviction under section 149 IPC fails.
Facts
The initial case was brought by the victim against seven accused who had caused serious injuries to the complainant by brutally thrashing him with deadly weapons like axe. The group intercepted the victim a day before the attack warning him not to come to field, despite the warning when the victim went to the field the accused attacked him and beaten him badly causing serious injuries to him. They stopped when the victim’s brother saw them and called an alarm. One of the accused died during the trial, the sessions judge charged and convicted the remaining 6 accused under section 148 IPC for rioting with deadly weapons and section 307 read with section 149 IPC for attempted murder as an object of unlawful assembly. The high court heard the case in appeal and after evaluating the evidence acquitted three of the accused on the grounds that they arrived late at the scene after the injuries were suffered by the victim, however, the court did not interfere with the conviction of the remaining three accused. Thus aggrieved by the high court’s decision the remaining accused filed an appeal in the Apex court.
The Appellant’s Plea
The counsel for appellants argued that minimum five persons are required to for unlawful assembly but since there were only three accused the charge of attempted murder as common object of unlawful assembly cannot survive and further added that charges only under section 307IPC shall not be added at an advance stage. The learned counsel also contended that the PW1 being the brother of the victim was not independent witness and pleaded that the charges be dropped against the appellants or their sentence to be reduced to what they had already served.
Prosecution’s Response
The prosecution contended that there must be no leniency towards the accused due to the nature of injuries suffered by the victim. The counsel further submitted that it was an attempted murder with premeditated meeting of minds regardless of it being an unlawful assembly or not.
Court’s Decision
The Supreme Court bench of Justice MV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Aniruddha Bose observed that the charges brought against the accused under section 148 and 149 of IPC would not survive since there were only three accused and there must be five persons to establish ‘unlawful assembly’. The court however, dictated that in absence of unlawful assembly the Court may also frame charges differently by bringing in charges independently or with section 34 if there is common intention and further remarked “Sections 211 to 224 of CrPC which deal with framing of charges in criminal trials, give significant flexibilityto Courts to alter and rectify the charges. The only controlling objective,while deciding on alteration is whether the new charge would cause.prejudice to the accused, say if he were to be taken by surprise or if the belated change would affect his defence strategy.” The court also added that appellate court may amend charges which were erroneously framed by the subordinate courts and stated that “improper, or nonframing of charge by itself is not a ground for acquittal”
Upon evaluation of the statements and medical reports, the court reached the conclusion that the appellants had attacked the victim with deadly weapons with the common intention of killing him. Thus the court was convinced that the appellants were guilty of attempted murder under section 307 of IPC without the aid of section 149 IPC based on their individual conduct against the victim and dismissed the appeal.
Since the victim suffered serious injuries which also left him disabled for life due to which the court took a stern view regarding leniency and remarked “Any misplaced sympathy with the appellants is likely to cause injustice to the victim of the crime. We, therefore, do not find any justification to show leniency and reduce the sentence.” The court, therefore, canceled the bail bonds of the appellants and directed the state to take them into custody for their remaining sentence.
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