Supreme Court of India was dealing with the petition challenging the judgment and Order dated 07.02.2017 passed by the High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru in Criminal Revision Petition, dismissing the Petition filed by the appellants. The High Court confirmed the Judgment and Order of the Trial Court and the First Appellate Court convicting the Appellants under Section 304(A) read with Section 34 of the IPC.
Brief Facts:
On 21.11.2003 Sri Uday Shankar S/o PW2 was watching TV in his house when there was a sudden sound in the TV. Noticing the sound, the deceased got up to separate the dish wire, the TV connection wire and the telephone wire, which were entwined together. At this point, he felt an electric shock and his right hand was burnt and as a result of this shock he succumbed to death. Upon enquiry, during the course of investigation, it was found that Appellant No. 2, who was a daily wage worker working under the supervision of Appellant no. 1, an employee in the telephone department, had, while working on the DP Pole, pulled the telephone wire. The telephone wire got detached and fell on the 11 KV Power line and electricity passed into the telephone wire. At this time, there was a sound in the TV at PW2’s house and as the deceased went to separate the telephone wire and cable wire, there was a short circuit and thereby, the right hand of the deceased was burnt and he died because of electrocution. It is further alleged that the said incident took place because of the negligent act on the part of Appellant No. 1 and Appellant No. 2.
SC’s Observations:
After hearing both the sides SC noted that the allegations against the Appellants are highly technical in nature and no report or even inspection was conducted by a technical expert to assess the veracity of the averments made by the complainants to suggest that it was due to the alleged acts of the Appellants that the incident took place. SC also noted that there is no eye witness to say conclusively that the Appellants were infact executing the work at the place alleged.
SC stated that Here it would be useful to advert to the dictum in the case of Syad Akbar Vs. State of Karnataka 1979 CriLJ 1374 which this Court proceeded on the basis that doctrine of res ipsa loquitur stricto sensu would not apply to a criminal case as its applicability in an action for injury by negligence is well known.
SC further stated that in case of circumstantial evidence, there is a risk of jumping to conclusions in haste. While evaluating such evidence the jury should bear in mind that inference of guilt should be the only reasonable inference from the facts. In the present case however, the conviction of the accused persons seems wholly unjustified against the weight of the evidence adduced.
SC opined that the Courts below were not justified in convicting the Appellants of negligence under Section 304A read with Section 34 IPC. SC stated that for bringing home the guilt of the accused, prosecution has to firstly prove negligence and then establish direct nexus between negligence of the accused and the death of the victim
SC Held:
After evaluating submissions made by both the parties the SC held that “it sounds completely preposterous that a telephone wire carried 11KV current without melting on contact and when such current passed through the Television set, it did not blast and melt the wiring of the entire house. It is even more unbelievable that Appellant no. 2 came in contact with the same voltage and managed to get away with a few abrasions. The Appellants therefore are entitled to be given the benefit of doubt; more so, when there is no report of a technical expert to corroborate the prosecution story. Accordingly, impugned judgment of conviction and sentence of the appellants is set aside.”
Case Title: Nanjundappa & Anr. v. The State of Karnataka
Bench: CJI. N.V. Ramana and J. Krishna Murari and J. Hima Kohli
Citation: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 900 OF 2017
Decided on: 17th May, 2022
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