Bhagat Singh v. the State
FAZL Au J.-This 1s an appeal against the judg-
ment of the High Court at Patiala upholding the con-
viction and ·sentence of the appellant. who was tried
~y the Sessions Judge of Sangrur for the offence of
1murder ·and sentenced to deatl1.
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S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 373
The prosecution story is a somewhat long and com-
plicated one, but ignormg unnecessary details, the
material facts may be shortly stated as follows:-
On the 5th October, 1949, there was a quarrel bet-
ween the appellant and one Darbara Singh, in the
-course of which the appellant attacked the latter with a
phawra (a cutting instrument). About that time, Gur-
mail Singh, the deceased person, returned to his house,
which was close to the house of Darbara Singh, from
his cotton field, where he had been working, in order
to take tea for his companions who were still working
in his field. The appellant asked Gurmail Smgh to lend
him a spear to enable him to kill Darbara Singh, but
since the latter refused to do so, there ensued a quarrel
·between him and tl1e aj)pellant, in the course of which
d1ey exchanged abuses and grappled with each other,
.and the fight was stopped only by the intervention of
certain persons present at the place. It appears that
the appellant was greatly affected by this quarrel, and
thereafter he is said to have armed himself with a rifle
and attacked 3 persons in the vicinity of Gurmail
Singh's cotton field. He fired firstly at Kartar Singh,
son of Sarwan Singh, while the latter was returning to
his house from the field of Gunnail Singh, but he was
not hurt. Soon after that, while Gurmail Singh was
returning to his field after attending to his buffaloes
-in a garden which was nearby, the appellant chased
him and fired at him thereby causing his instantaneous
.death. Lastly, he· is said to have fired at Kartar Singh,
son of Bishan Singh and one Jangir Singh, while they
were raising an alarm, but the bullet missed them.
Upon these allegations, the following three charges
were framed against him:-
"(1) That you ...... fired a shot at Gurmail Singh
deceased with rifle P. I. with the intention of killing
him and caused his death and thereby committed an
·offence punishable under section 302 ..... .
(2) That you...... fired a shot at Kartar Singh and
Jangir Singh with rifle P. I. with the intention of caus-
ing death and made an attempt to cause their death
1951
-·-
Bhagat Singh
v.
The State.
Fazl Ali/.
1951
Bhagat Singh
.v.
The State.
Faz/ Ali f.
374 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1952}
.... and · thereby committed an offence punishable
under section 307 ..... .
(3) That you ... : .. fired a gun-shot at Kartar Singh
s/o Sarwan Singh ...... with the intention of killing him
and made an attempt to cause his death and thereby
committed an offence punishable under section 307 ... "
It appears that the appellant was an Instructor in
the· Home Guards, and the rifle which he is said to
have used had been given to him by his supenor
officer with 20 rounds. of ammunition.
To support their verson of the· occurrence, the prose··
cution examined 3 eye-witnesses whose evidence has
been accepted by both the courts below after careful
scrutiny. · The learned Sessions Judge acquitted the
appellant of the second and tl;\ird . charges under sec-
tion '307 of the Indian Penal Code, holding that there
was no convincing evidence that the appellant intended
to murder Jangir Singh· and the ·other 2 persons. He
however convicted him of the first charge under sec·
tion 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him
to death, which sentence was later confirmed by the
High Court.
The learned counsel for the appellant had very little
to argue on the merits of the case, but he seriously
contended that there had be.en a misjoinder of charges.
which coµld not be tried together under the law, and
the illegality so committed had vitiated the whole trial
of the appellant. It appears that in the High Court,
the line of argument on this point was somewhat
different from the line adopted in -rhis court. What
was stressed in that court seems to have been that the-
threc incidents in respect of which tl1e appellant was
charged not having happened in the course of the same
transaction, they could not have been properly made
the subject of one trial, . and for this contention reli-
ance. was placed mainly on section 235 (1) of the
Criminal Procedure Code, which provides that "if, in
one series of acts so connected together as to form the·
same transaction, more offences man one are committed·
hy, the', s.a1Iie persoµ;•he· may, be charged with, and tried
at ohe trial for, every such offence." It should be ·noted:
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S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 375
that that ·section is only one of the exceptions to the
general rule laid down in section 233 of the Code that
for every distinct offence, there shall be a separate
charge and every such charge shall be tried separately.
In this court, no reference was made to section 235, but
the argument was confined to the question as to whether
the present case falls within another exception of sec-
tion 233 which is contained in section 234 (1) which
runs as follows:-
. "When a ·.person is accused of more offences than
one of the same kind committed within the space of
twelve months from the first to the last of such offences,
whether in respect of the same person or not, he may
be charged with~ and tried at one trial for any number
of them not exceeding three."
It was argued before us that even though only 3
charges have been framed against the appellant, he
has in fact been tried for 4 offences and not 3. The 4
bffences are said to be these:-
( l) Committing the murder of Gurmail Singh;
(2) Attempting to murder Kartar Singh, son of
San van Singh;
(3) Attempting to murder Jangir Singh; and
· ( 4) Attempting to murder Kartar Singh, son of
Sarwan Singh ;
The learned counsel contended that the fact that
the appellant has been acquitted · of the last 3 offences
and convicted only of the first offence was immaterial
to the point raised by him, and we have only to see
whether all the offences mentioned above could be pro-
perly tried together. In our opinion, the short reply
to this contention is that the second charge which
relates to the appellant firing at Kartar Singh and'
Jangir Singh is not a charge with respect to 2 offences
but is a charge with respect to one offence only. The
evidence adduced by the prosecution . shows that the
appellant fired only · one bullet. The word "offence"
has been defined in the Criminal Procedure Code as
meaning· "any ;ict or 0111issjon :mad_e punishable/ _by any-1
law for the time being in . force" .. There seems 'to be:1
1951
Bhagat Si,,gft.'
.-v.
The St11te.
F 11zl Ali I•
1951
-BIHlgat Singh
v.
The State.
Faz/ Ali/.
nothing wrong in law to regard the single act of firing
by the appellant as one offence only. On the other
hand, we think that it would be,tak'ing an extremely
narrow and artificial view to split it into 2 offences.
There are several reported cases in which a similar view
has been taken, and in our opinion they have not been
incorrectly decided. In Queen Empress v. Ragu Rai('),
where a person stole several bullocks from the same
herdsman at the same time, it was held that only one o'ff-
ence had been committetl. In Promotlza Nath Ray v. King
Emperor('), it was held that misappropriation in regard
to several account books constituted only one offence.
In Johan Subama v. King Emperor('), it was held that
when. an attempt to cheat a number of men by speak-
ing to them in a bodv had been committed, one joint
charge was valid. In Poonit Sing v. Madho Bhot ('),
it was held that onlv one offence had been committed
by a person who ga~e false i11formation in one state-
ment to the police against 2 persons. In Sudheendra
Kumar Ray v. Emperor(''), a person who was chased
by 2 constables had fired at them several times, but it
seems to have· been rightly assumed that the firing did
not constitute more than one offence, though the point
was not specifically raised or decided. In our· opinion,
there is no substance in the point raised, though we
should not be unckrstood as laying down the wide
proposition that in no case can a single act constitute
more than one offence.
The other points urged on behalf of the appellant
before us were somewhat unsubstantial points relating
to the merits of the case. which it is not usual for this
<:ourt to allow to be raised in appeals by special leave.
In our opinion, this appeal is without merit, and it
1s accordingly dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.
Agent for the appellant: R. S. Narula.
Agent for the respondent: P. A. Mehta.
Agent for the caveator: Vidya Sagar.
{1 1881A.W.N,154.
~2) 17 C.W,N.479.
(3) 10 C.W.N. 520. (5) l.L.R. 60 Cal. 643.
(4) I.LR, 13 Cal. 270.
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