Reg v Govinda

Facts

The accused, an 18-year-old, kicked his 15-year-old wife and struck her several blows with his fist on her back. When she fell, he put one knee on her chest and dealt two or three violent blows with his closed fist on her face, with force enough to cause severe internal injury about the left eye. Although the skull was not fractured, the blow caused extravasation of blood on the brain, and she died. The Sessions Judge and the assessors convicted him of murder and sentenced him to death.

Issues

• Whether the act amounted to murder under Section 300 IPC or to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 299 IPC.
• How to distinguish clause (b) of Section 299 from clause (3) of Section 300 where bodily injury is intentionally inflicted.

Arguments

The prosecution case was that the accused intentionally inflicted the fatal bodily injury, making the act murder. The defence/reference contended that the injury, though intended, was not of a kind sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and so the offence fell short of murder.

Held

Melvill J. held the offence to be culpable homicide not amounting to murder, not murder. Comparing Section 299 with Section 300 clause by clause, he located the crucial distinction between clause (b) of Section 299 and clause (3) of Section 300: the offence is culpable homicide if the bodily injury intended is 'likely' to cause death, but murder if such injury is 'sufficient in the ordinary course of nature' to cause death — a difference of degree of probability. Here the accused intended to cause bodily injury, and that injury (a fist blow to the eye while the victim was held down) was 'likely' to cause death, but it was not an injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. Accordingly the case fell under Section 299(b) and not Section 300(3). The conviction was altered to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and the sentence reduced from death to transportation for seven years.

Ratio decidendi

The line between culpable homicide and murder, where a bodily injury is intentionally inflicted, turns on the degree of probability of death: if the injury intended is merely 'likely' to cause death it is culpable homicide (S299(b)); if it is 'sufficient in the ordinary course of nature' to cause death it is murder (S300, clause 3).

Significance

A foundational authority on the culpable homicide / murder distinction, repeatedly cited and approved (notably in State of Andhra Pradesh v R. Punnayya) for Melvill J.'s clause-by-clause comparison of Sections 299 and 300 IPC. Under the new code the same scheme is carried forward: culpable homicide is now Section 100 BNS, murder is Section 101 BNS, and punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder is Section 105 BNS, so the 'likely' vs 'sufficient in the ordinary course of nature' test remains good law.

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