mumbai

Updated: Jun 18, 2019 12:50 IST

The Bombay high court (HC) has ruled that a person, who assaults another man or woman, cannot be held responsible for causing the death of the victim if he or she dies primarily owing to lack of proper treatment.

Justice VM Deshpande has set aside the conviction of three agriculturists, Hari Giri and his brothers Tulsiram and Rameshwar from Washim district, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and the five-year prison term they were sentenced to as one of the two villagers they had assaulted died mainly owing to lack of treatment. The judge, however, upheld their conviction for voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons and sentenced them to three years’ imprisonment.

On December 14, 1999, the trio had assaulted two of their fellow villagers, Raju and Ambadas, with bamboo sticks and an axe. Both the injured were treated at a local hospital and a complaint was registered. The police added section 302 (murder) of the IPC to the case after Ambadas died a fortnight later. The trio was arrested and on January 15, 2005, the additional sessions judge at Washim convicted them for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced them to five years in jail. They were also convicted for voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons.

The trio then moved the HC challenging their convictions. Advocate Shashibhushan Wahane, representing the accused, submitted their conviction under section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was erroneous as the evidence of Dr Sandesh Rathod, who conducted the autopsy, showed the skull fracture of Ambadas was revealed during the autopsy and was not treated initially, leading to his death.

Justice Deshpande noted that Rathod had opined that such injury to the brain can result in death in 10 to 15 days after the incident if it remains untreated, the judge noted. “I am of the opinion that Ambadas expired due to improper management of the injury… Therefore, the present prosecution case can’t travel beyond offence under section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons) read with section 34 of IPC.”