Is intentional causing of injury sufficient to cause death?

Is intentional causing of injury sufficient to cause death? written by Prapti Kothari student of Institute of Law, Nirma university

CASE BRIEF ON VIRSA SINGH V. STATE OF PUNJAB AIR 1958 SC 465

MATERIAL FACTS

The appellant, Virsa Singh, formed an unlawful assembly together with five other individuals and assaulted one Khem Singh with a spear. His abdomen was ruptured as a consequence of injury and three coils of intestine came out of the wound that resulted in his death, which was around two and a half inches. The doctor confirmed, pertaining to the Post Mortem Report, that the injury was deep enough resulting in gushing out of digested food from the cuts and was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.

ISSUES

1. Whether any offense has been committed by the appellant?
2. Whether an individual can get away with the punishment for the injury caused which resulted in death when there was a lack of intent?

ARGUMENTS ADVANCED

The appellant argued that the intent of the first part of section 300, thirdly, “if done with the intention of causing bodily harm to any person”, would not be adequate to fall under this section. For the second part, an additional condition of intent, i.e. “and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted which should be sufficient to cause death (in the normal course of nature)” is also required.

Furthermore, the appellant referred to the case of R v. Steane (1947) in which the Chief Justice ruled that “where a specific intent must be charged, that specific intent must be proved” and sought to expand the position of intent in the act in question. The appellant cited another paragraph from the same case where it was asserted that the accused should be acquitted in case of doubt as to the concern of intent and put the responsibility on the prosecution to prove the intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

It was argued that the above-mentioned facts do not reveal an offense of murder under section 300, thirdly because the prosecutor has not proved that there was intent to inflict a bodily injury that was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. Lastly, the appellant linked the case to Emperor v. Sardarkhan Jaridkhan (1917), which said that it is challenging to figure out what the accused actually meant when death is caused by a single blow.

JUDGEMENT

The appeal was dismissed and the appellant was convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).

ANALYSIS

In ascertaining whether an act is a murder or not, analyzing the intent becomes essential. However, when a single blow has caused murder, determination of intention becomes difficult; which happened in the present case. In the ordinary course of nature, whether it was necessary to cause death is a subject of interpretation from the established facts about the complexity of the injury and has little to do with the issue of intention.

In the case of Virsa Singh v. the State of Punjab, readers should note that when a case is falling under the realms of section 300 of IPC, and when there’s contention as to whether firstly or thirdly of the said section would be applied, the following aspects should be taken into account. The condition is erroneous where the accused should have the intention or knowledge to cause injury, which is necessary to cause death in the ordinary course, meaning, as long as the death results from deliberate bodily injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. When the intention to cause the bodily injury is genuinely found and the same is established in the court of law, then the remaining part of the investigation process is solely objective and the only concern is whether, as a matter of purely objective inference, the injury is enough to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.

The injury caused should be the cause of death. It is clearly a matter of fact whether a specific injury is enough in the ordinary course of nature to cause death or not. The perpetrator, who caused the injury deliberately, maybe oblivious that the injury is sufficient or capable of causing death.

The real analysis of this section indicates that it is not enough to establish that the injury identified to be existing is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature, but it must also be established or rather proved that the injury found to be existent was the same injury intended to be incurred. However, if his intention to inflict the injury is known and the injury sustained is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, then the perpetrator is guilty of murder for culpable homicide.

CONCLUSION

No individual has a permit to roam scot-free, while causing injuries that are sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death and argue that they are not guilty of murder, meaning that, they must confront the repercussions if they inflict injuries of that kind, and they can only get away if it can be established or rather fairly deduced that the injury was accidental or otherwise unintended.

In order to bring the case under clause thirdly of section 300, of the IPC, the court gave a four-point test that the prosecutor must observe and prove: which is used as precedents in many other succeeding cases. Justice Vivian Bose’s reflections on the four-point test have been known as ‘locus classicus’. The test set out in the case of Virsa Singh for the scope of the clause “thirdly” is now embedded in our legal framework and has become an integral part of the system.