Kerala Court sentences flat resident, caretaker to 2 years in jail for assault on courier delivery boy, passerby

A Kerala Court recently sentenced a flat resident and a caretaker to two years in jail for assaulting a courier delivery boy as well as a man who tried to intervene and stop the attack. .The accused were stated to have verbally abused and launched an attack on the delivery boy at the office of a professional courier service after he failed to deliver a courier earlier in the day. As per the prosecution, the delivery boy was prevented from making the delivery as he did not sign the visitor's book maintained at the flat..Another man who tried to intervene when he noticed that the accused were misbehaving and shouting obscenities at the delivery boy also ended up at the receiving end of the attack, the complaint stated..On July 13, sessions judge Sunil Berchmans Varkey convicted the flat resident for the offence under Section 294(b) (obscene acts and songs) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).Further, both the flat resident and the caretaker were found guilty of the offences under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt, 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous objects), and 329 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort property, or to constrain to an illegal act) of the IPC.The court proceeded to sentence the flat resident (the first accused) to undergo one month of simple imprisonment for verbally abusing the delivery boy using Malayalam expletives. .Further, both the flat resident and the caretaker were sentenced to two years of rigorous imprisonment and ordered to pay a ₹10,000 fine each of causing grievous hurt. Both the accused were, however, acquitted of the offence of culpable homicide. The court reasoned that even though the accused had hit one of the victims with a helmet, they did not seem aware that such an injury could cause death. "No doubt helmet is an instrument which if used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death. The non-recovery of the helmet is immaterial when the depositions of PW’s 1 to 3 are true and trustworthy ... The evidence adduced by the prosecution is not sufficient to say that the accused have the degree of knowledge to the extent that their act may likely to cause the death of PW1 (passer-by)," the court said. .The delivery boy, Dileep had been working at a courier agency named Professional Couriers. As per the prosecution, Dileep had gone to Unihome Residency to deliver a courier belonging to the first accused on February 5, 2019. At the time, he asked the caretaker if it was necessary to fill out the visitor’s book since he would not take a lot of time to deliver the courier. The caretaker is stated to have got angry and forcibly thrown the courier from the delivery boy’s hands.Later in the day, the flat resident said to have gone to the courier agency to pick up his courier, when he enquired about the delivery boy. When the delivery boy came back to the office in the evening after the day's deliveries, both the caretaker and flat resident were stated to have caught hold of the delivery boy's shoulder and called him obscene words for having "created trouble in the morning."Seeing this, a passer-by man tried to intervene. However, he too was assaulted by the accused persons. As per the complaint, the passerby was hit on the face, near his eye, with a helmet. The court was also told that the accused twisted his hand and kicked him on his chest and abdomen. The prosecution alleged that both the accused persons injured the passer-by man because he questioned their indecent behavior toward the delivery boy.Both the accused persons denied all these allegations and pleaded not guilty before the court..However, the court was unconvinced by their defence. After going through all the witness statements and precedents, the court ultimately held both the accused guilty..[Read Judgment]