The Indian Penal Code (IPC) holds that the death of a person caused in a ‘sudden fight’ is not murder.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and R.K. Agrawal interpreted this exception to murder in a recent judgement, noting that unlike murder, death caused in a ‘sudden fight’ meant that blows were exchanged equally between the perpetrator and the victim before the former got the upper hand.
The interpretation came in handy for Surain Singh, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘murder’. Mr. Singh and some others had entered into a violent quarrel with another party of men, with whom they shared a history of violence over the irrigation of their fields. The quarrel had slipped into exchange of blows with fatal results.
They were convicted of murder by the Sessions Court. Subsequently, the Punjab and Haryana High Court confirmed the conviction and life sentence in 2008. Aggrieved, Mr. Singh had moved the Supreme Court.
Exception 4 to Section 300 (murder) of the IPC mandates that “culpable homicide is not murder if it is committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel and without the offender having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner”.
The term ‘fight’ is not defined in the 1860 law, the Supreme Court observed.
Justice Agrawal, who authored the judgement in the case, explained that a “sudden fight” implied mutual provocation and blows on each side. There was no previous deliberation or determination to fight. Both the murderer and his victim were equally to blame. There was mutual provocation and aggravation. In such cases, it would be difficult to pin the entire blame on the man who struck the final blow.
“A fight suddenly takes place, for which both parties are more or less to be blamed. It may be that one of them starts it, but if the other had not aggravated it by his own conduct, it would not have taken the serious turn it did,” the court observed.
Explaining the Exception 4, the court observed that “it takes two to make a fight. Heat of passion requires that there must be no time for the passions to cool down”.
Noting that a reduction in Mr. Singh’s prison sentence from a life term to 10 years would only serve the ends of justice, the court found that both parties had worked themselves into a fury on account of the verbal altercation in the beginning.
