Determining common intention under Section 34 IPC should be left to trial courts, High Courts: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday opined that the determination of whether persons accused of committing crimes had a common intention to commit the offence should be left to trial courts and High Courts [Baljinder Singh @ Ladoo and ors v State of Punjab]..The concept of holding several persons jointly liable for a crime on the ground that they had a common intention to commit the offence is contained in Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).It states that when a criminal act is done by two or more persons in furtherance of a common intention, each of them is liable for the act done as if it were done by him aloneA similar provision is found in Section 3 (5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which replaced the IPC in July..In its September 25 ruling, a Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih said that the Supreme Court cannot be expected to directly adjudicate on such issues of common intention and common object."The determination of common intention or common object should primarily be within the domain of the trial courts, and at the most the high courts. It should not be the role of this Court to directly adjudicate issues of common intention and common object," it observed.It added that there are several Supreme Court judgments already delivered on these issues which can be relied on by trial courts for guidance. .The observations came while confirming the conviction and life sentence of several accused in a 1997 murder case. The crime is said to have been triggered by an altercation that ensued after one of the accused bumped another man with a scooter. After the accused man was slapped during the argument, he is said to have brought his sons (co-accused) to the spot, all armed with weapons. This happened around 15 minutes after the altercation, the Court was told. The accused men then attacked several victims (the man who slapped the accused and others who intervened to end the altercation). Some of the victims were shot and later died. The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed appeals filed by the accused against a May 2011 Punjab and Haryana High Court order that had largely upheld an August 2001 trial court order against the accused.The top court noted that common intention was established as all the accused-appellants had fled the crime scene together while carrying their weapons.Further, it found that the claim of the accused that they were falsely implicated remained unsubstantiated..In the same ruling, the Court also noted that there cannot be a fixed timeframe for the formation of common intention. This observation was made in response to the question of whether the accused in this case could have formed a common intention to commit the crime within a short span of 15 minutes. "We are of the view that there cannot be a fixed timeframe for formation of common intention. It is not essential for the perpetrators to have had prior meetings to conspire or make preparations for the crime. Common intention to commit murder can arise even moments before the commission of the act. Since common intention is a mental state of the perpetrators, it is inherently challenging to substantiate directly. Instead, it can be inferred from the conduct of the perpetrators immediately before, during, and after the commission of the act," the Court held..Advocates Sanjay Jain, Gurdeep Singh, Sajjan Singh Nahar, and Ruchika Bhan appeared for the appellants.Additional Advocate General Gaurav Dhamma with Advocates Siddhant Sharma, Sheetal Dubey, Pragya Patel, and Malvika appeared for the State of Punjab..[Read Judgment]