41 years after murder conviction, Allahabad High Court lets off 4 convicts with ₹5,000 fine and lesser charge

In a case dating back to 1971, the Allahabad High Court recently let off four convicts with a fine of ₹5,000 after finding they had been wrongly convicted under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the killing of a man [Rajendra @Rajendra Prasad And Others v. State].A division bench of Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Vinod Diwakar said the incident had happened in the heat of the moment when residents in a village had an altercation during the grazing of cattle.There was no premeditation and there was only a sudden fight in the heat of passion, the bench said..Thus, the Court altered the conviction of surviving convicts to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 (Part II) of IPC."Definitely circumstances in which the incident took place, the nature of weapons which were used, the injuries which had occurred and the provocation etc. which were there go to show that the appellants had not gone there in a planned manner to kill Balram. The court maintains the culpability of the appellants and the conviction is altered to an offence under Section 304 (Part II) of IPC. The appellants are now no longer to be convicted under Section 302 IPC," it ordered..There were nine accused in the case - one of them died during the pendency of trial. In 1983, the trial court convicted eight accused for Balram's murder. They (appellants) appealed the decision in 1983 itself. During the pendency of the appeal, four convicts died. On May 15, the High Court pronounced its decision on the appeals of four surviving convicts.Their counsel had argued that an altercation had occurred when calls for help were raised by the children from both the sides and in the heat of the moment, the entire incident had occurred."If the entire evidence of the prosecution is to be believed and all the defence is to be disregarded, then at the best, the case could not travel beyond the offence under Section 304 Part – II of the IPC," it was submitted..While agreeing with the arguments made by the counsel for appellants, the Court noted that an act which happens in the heat of the moment is covered under Exception 4 of Section 300 IPC. The Exception 4 states 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 children of the two sides had gone to graze their cattle and people from both sides had assembled to help the children of their side when a hue and cry was raised. The incident thereafter had occurred and the incident happened in the heart of the moment," the Court observed..Thus, the Court maintained the culpability of the convicts but altered their conviction to an offence under Section 304 (Part II) of IPC.Considering that it has been 41 years since they were found guilty by the trial court, the Court also decided to take a lenient view in sentencing them."With regard to sentence, the Court finds that the appellants have suffered much and they have undergone the trauma of being convicted persons for almost 41 years and, therefore, we consider that the punishment of imposing a fine of Rs. 5000/- on each of the alive appellants would be sufficient punishment for them," it ordered..Advocates MP Yadav and PK Vishwakarma appeared for the appellants.Additional Government Advocate Archana Singh and advocate Mayuri Mehrotra appeared for the State of Uttar Pradesh..[Read Judgment]