Absence of Skull Fracture No Ground to Discredit Head Injury Leading to Death: Allahabad High Court Upholds Conviction for Culpable Homicide

“Coma Resulting from Internal Brain Hemorrhage is Medically Sufficient to Cause Death—External Bleeding or Skull Fracture Not Essential”, Allahabad High Court, delivered a significant judgment reinforcing the doctrine of vicarious liability under Section 149 IPC, and clarified the legal standards for conviction under Section 304 Part II IPC, particularly in cases involving fatal head injuries without external skull fractures. The Court dismissed the appeals filed by five convicts—Dayanand, Vivekanand, Chandrashekhar, Sharananand and Prayag—and upheld their seven-year sentence for the death of Ram Ratan Yadav, inflicted during a brutal group assault over a land dispute.

The High Court stated that “Even if no fracture in the skull was found during postmortem, the presence of internal hemorrhage, coma, and brain swelling was sufficient to conclude homicidal violence resulting in death.”

“If Common Object of Assembly Results in Fatal Consequence, Every Member Shares the Guilt—Precise Blow Immaterial”: High Court Invokes Section 149 IPC

In a sharply worded pronouncement on group violence and joint liability, the Division Bench of Justices Rajiv Gupta and Harvir Singh ruled that “Precise attribution of fatal injury is unnecessary where the death is the result of a group assault carried out with common intent.” The Court categorically rejected the defence argument that mere presence at the scene or the inability to pinpoint individual blows should negate culpability under Section 149 IPC. The Bench observed:

“The assembly was clearly unlawful and the injuries inflicted were not casual or accidental but targeted and brutal. The law does not require individual identification of who delivered the fatal blow in such cases.”

Summary of the Case and Procedural History

The incident occurred on 11 July 2014 around 1:00 PM when Ram Ratan Yadav, accompanied by his wife Krishna Devi (PW-1) and daughter Suman Yadav (PW-2), was returning home on a motorcycle. Near a place referred to as Waye Miyan ki Madai, the accused persons allegedly emerged from a hut and forcibly stopped the vehicle. According to the consistent accounts of PW-1 and PW-2, the accused pulled Ram Ratan from the motorcycle and began beating him mercilessly with lathis and wooden sticks, fracturing his leg and hand, and targeting his abdomen and head.

Despite being immediately taken to hospitals in Rudrapur and Deoria, he was eventually referred to B.R.D. Medical College, Gorakhpur, where he succumbed to his injuries the same night at 10:00 PM. An FIR was lodged the next day, and after trial, the Additional Sessions Judge, Deoria, convicted five of the six accused under various sections including Section 304(ii) IPC, sentencing them to seven years of rigorous imprisonment. They appealed the conviction.

The core legal questions before the High Court revolved around (a) whether death caused in a group assault without a skull fracture could be punished under Section 304 Part II IPC, and (b) whether absence of specific attribution of injury invalidated the collective liability under Section 149 IPC.

The defence sought to portray the incident as an accidental fall from the motorcycle, allegedly due to the deceased being intoxicated. Defence witnesses, including DW-1 Ramesh Paswan and DW-2 Rajaram Yadav, claimed Ram Ratan fell on a gravel road and was not assaulted.

The High Court rejected this version outright. It noted the medical evidence from Dr. Mahesh Kumar (PW-5) and Dr. J.P. Singh (PW-4), which indicated internal brain hemorrhage, swelling, and coma, as the cause of death. Dr. Kumar deposed that:

“The brain fluid and blood clot were found under the scalp. Though the skull was not fractured, the deceased died due to coma caused by blunt force impact.”

The Court ruled that “The absence of external bleeding or visible skull fracture does not negate the fatal nature of internal cranial injuries. Death was the direct result of intentional bodily harm inflicted during the assault.”

Further, the High Court rejected the defence’s contention that injuries were simple in nature or insufficient to cause death. It cited the postmortem findings of multiple contusions, broken bones, internal swelling, and the consistency of eyewitness testimony, which corroborated the sequence and nature of the attack.

Reaffirming the Doctrine of Common Object under Section 149 IPC

The Bench reaffirmed that members of an unlawful assembly bear equal responsibility when death results from collective violence, even if the fatal blow cannot be individually assigned. The Court held:

“Where multiple persons act in concert in a targeted attack, and the death occurs as a probable consequence of the assault, all participants are equally liable. The argument of individual non-attribution of a blow fails in law.”

The Court stressed that intent to kill is not a prerequisite under Section 304 Part II; knowledge that death is a likely result is sufficient. It noted that the assailants armed themselves with dangerous objects and launched an attack on a defenceless man, which must be construed as an act done with the knowledge that it could cause death.

Defence Witnesses Declared Unreliable

The High Court cast doubt on the veracity of defence witnesses, noting contradictions and admitted bias. DW-1 admitted to being closely associated with the accused and conceded that he was testifying upon their instruction, while DW-2 failed to recall basic details, including names of individuals in the complainant’s family, despite being a supposed neutral villager.

The Bench noted, “The defence evidence lacks credibility, was riddled with contradictions, and appears tailor-made to dilute the prosecution’s case.”

In a detailed judgment, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the appeals filed by the convicts and upheld their conviction and sentence under Section 304(ii) IPC read with Section 149 IPC. The Court categorically held that:

“The death of Ram Ratan was not accidental, but a consequence of deliberate group violence. The head injury causing coma was sufficient in law to convict under Section 304 Part II.”

This ruling not only strengthens the application of common object liability under criminal law but also clarifies that internal injuries can be sufficient to establish culpable homicide, even in the absence of overt skull damage or external bleeding.

Date of Decision: 18 August 2018