New Delhi:The Supreme Court while commuting the life sentence of a non-commissioned officer convicted for killing his colleague during an altercation over seniority said it appears that in the heat of passion, the appellant snatched a rifle held by the deceased and fired only one bullet, and if there was any pre-mediation he would have fired more bullets.
A bench comprising justices Abhay S Oka and Sanjay Karol said in a disciplined force like Army, seniority has all the importance and therefore, there is every possibility that the dispute over seniority resulted in the appellant doing the act in a heat of passion. The bench said the appellant snatched a rifle held by the deceased and fired only one bullet and if there was any premeditation on his part, he would have fired more bullets at the deceased.
The top court said there was no intention on his part to kill the deceased and pointed at three facts: the appellant was a soldier on guard duty; the appellant and the deceased had a fight over seniority and though there were 20 rounds in the rifle of the deceased, he fired only one round. “There was a sudden fight over seniority when the appellant and the deceased had consumed liquor. There was no premeditation”, noted the bench, while commuting the life sentence of a non-commissioned officer held guilty of killing his colleague during an altercation over seniority.
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The top court said, “The appellant, in the facts of the case, cannot be said to have acted in such a cruel manner which will deprive him of the benefit of exception 4 to Section 300 of IPC. The term cruel manner is a relative term”. In December 2004, the lance naik Gursewak Singh and the deceased, who was also of the same rank, were on duty at Ferozepur cantonment in Punjab where had an altercation over seniority.
The petitioner was convicted by the Court Martial for the offence punishable under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC read with Section 69 of the Army Act, 1950 and was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The Armed Forces Tribunal, Chandigarh, confirmed his conviction and sentence. The decision of the tribunal was upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The top court modified the conviction and also reduced the sentence to nine years and three months, which the man had already served.
The top court said, “The appellant fired only one bullet, which proved to be fatal. He did not fire more bullets though available. He did not run away and he helped others to take the deceased to a hospital. If we assign a meaning to the word ‘cruel’ used in exception 4, which is used in common parlance, in no case exception 4 can be applied. Therefore, in our view, exception 4 to Section 300 was applicable in this case. Therefore, the appellant is guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder”. Concluding the judgment, the top court said taking an overall view of the evidence on record, the sentence already undergone by the appellant will be an appropriate sentence in the facts of the case.
