Summary
The victim, thrown from a terrace and beaten, suffered a spinal cord injury causing paraplegia and died about nine months later of septic shock, pneumonia and infected bedsores. The High Court altered the murder conviction to attempt to murder on the ground that death followed late and from want of proper treatment. The Supreme Court held this was a serious error, since the complications flowed from the original injuries and Explanation 2 to Section 299 IPC makes adequacy of treatment irrelevant, and laid down principles for delayed deaths; but as the State had not appealed, it only dismissed the accused's appeal.
Issues
- Whether an assault resulting in death some nine months later, from septic shock, pneumonia and infected bedsores following a spinal cord injury, is murder or only attempt to murder.
- Whether alleged lack of proper treatment, or a supervening complication, breaks the chain of causation between the injury and the death.
- What the ingredients of an offence under Section 307 IPC are and how intention is to be inferred.
- Whether the eyewitnesses, who were relatives of the deceased, could be relied upon.
Provisions considered
- Section 299, Explanation 2, Indian Penal Code, 1860Where death is caused by bodily injury, the person causing it is deemed to have caused the death even if proper remedies and skilful treatment might have prevented it; the Court held that the High Court's reliance on lack of proper treatment was unsupported by evidence and in any event irrelevant. (¶¶ 25, 26, 43, 65, 66, 68)
- Section 300, clauses Thirdly and Fourthly, Indian Penal Code, 1860Injuries sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death attract clause Thirdly even if death follows after complications supervene; here the injuries fell within clause Thirdly. (¶¶ 25, 27, 67, 69)
- Section 307, Indian Penal Code, 1860The Court set out the ingredients of attempt to murder, holding that intention or knowledge of the kind in Section 300 is the essential element, the act must be capable of causing death, and no life-endangering injury need be caused; the provision was wrongly applied to a case where death had in fact been caused by the injuries. (¶¶ 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 70)
- Section 302, Indian Penal Code, 1860The Court held the offence was murder punishable under Section 302, the High Court having erred in altering the conviction, though no interference followed in the absence of a State appeal. (¶¶ 14, 67, 69, 70)
Held
- The evidence of the eyewitnesses, though relatives of the deceased, gave no good reason to disbelieve them, and was corroborated by the medical evidence. (¶¶ 13, 21)
- The medical evidence showed that the deceased died of complications of paraplegia following the spinal cord injury suffered in the assault, namely septic shock from infected pressure sores, with pneumonia resulting from the prolonged treatment; the defence had not challenged the doctors on this. (¶¶ 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21)
- Section 307 requires an act done with intention or knowledge of the kind in Section 300 in circumstances such that, if death were caused, it would be murder; intention is inferred from circumstances such as the weapon, the manner of its use, the part of the body targeted, the nature of injuries and the opportunity available. The act must be capable of causing death, but an injury endangering life need not actually be caused. (¶¶ 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35)
- A supervening condition named as the immediate cause of death does not remove the original injury from the chain of causation if death is its ultimate result; the chain is broken only by a considerable change of circumstances, such as the injuries healing or ceasing to be dangerous before an unexpected fatal complication. Lapse of time between injury and death is not by itself determinative. (¶¶ 40, 42, 59, 67)
- The High Court's finding that the deceased died for lack of proper treatment had no evidentiary basis, no such suggestion having been put to the doctors, and was in any case irrelevant under Explanation 2 to Section 299; it was also inconsistent with the High Court's own acceptance that death resulted from the injuries. (¶ 68)
- Principles for delayed deaths: where the injury was fatal and intended, or intended and sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, or imminently dangerous with the requisite knowledge, the offence is murder even though septicaemia or other complications supervened; the possibility that skilful treatment might have prevented death is irrelevant; if the complications are the natural or probable consequence of the injury, the injury caused the death, whereas an unexpected complication causing new mischief or too remote a connection breaks the causal link. (¶ 69)
- The injuries here were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death and fell within clause Thirdly of Section 300, so the High Court seriously erred in treating the case as attempt to murder; but since the State had not appealed against the alteration, the exercise was academic and the appellant's conviction under Section 307 was left undisturbed. (¶¶ 11, 14, 67, 70, 71)
Result
Appeal by the accused dismissed; conviction under Section 307 IPC as altered by the High Court left undisturbed in the absence of an appeal by the State, though the Court disapproved the High Court's view.