The judgment established that the ingredients of common intention under Section 34 of the IPC must be satisfied for a conviction, and the essence of liability is the simultaneous conscious mind of the persons participating in the criminal action to bring about a particular result.

ORDER :

1. Both the appellants herein are convicted by the Trial Court for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, "I.P.C.") and given life imprisonment.

2. F.I.R N0. 51 dated 07.05.1995 was lodged in this behalf by one Shri Harbans Singh, who appeared as P.W. 1 during trial. In this F.I.R. three persons were named, who were tried, namely, the two appellants-herein and one Hem Raj Sindhi. Since Hem Raj Sindhi died during the pendency of the trial, the case against him stood abated. The Trial Court, on the analysis of evidence produced before it, held that Mewa Ram (appellant No. 1) had fired the gun shot at Deputy Singh(deceased), as a result of which he died. Insofar as appellant No. 2 Mohan Lal is concerned, he is convicted for the same offence with the aid of Section 34 of the I.P.C, imputing common intention on his part along with appellant No. 1, namely common intention of both the appellants to kill Deputy Singh.

3. The High Court has upheld the conviction of both these appellants resulting in dismissal of the appeal that was filed by them against the conviction recorded by the Trial Court. The judgment of the High Court is impugned in these proceedings, questioning the validity thereof.

4. We may state at the outset that insofar as appellant Mewa Ram is concerned, the learned counsel for the appellants very fairly conceded that he was not pressing the conviction of Mewa Ram. Thus, entire focus of his arguments was on the conviction of appellant No. 2-Mohan Lal and he endeavors to argue that it was not a case where any common intention could be imputed on behalf of appellant No. 2 as well. Thus, we have examined the case from the afore-mentioned angle.

5. With this short introductory remarks, we refer to the incident that occurred as per the case of the prosecution.

6. As mentioned above, F.I.R. was lodged by Shri Harbans Singh (hereinafter referred to as "the complainant") with Police Station Keshrisinghpur, District Sri Ganganagar, on 07.05.1995 at 12:10 p.m. In his statement he mentioned that he had cultivated the land of Rewa Ram Sindhi on 3rd share basis and in respect of transaction of land Mohanlal son of Hem Raj Sindhi became the surety. On the eventful day, at 8:00 a.m., when the complainant had reached near the flour mill of appellant No. 2, where he and appellant No. 1 both sons of Hem Raj Sindhi were present, he requested them to settle the accounts and pay the money. On this, both the appellants started causing fist blows to the complainant. We would like to reproduce the statement in the F.I.R. in verbatim as under :

"During the said period my nephew Deputy Singh son of Chagad Singh Majbi rescued me then Mewa Ram went running to his house and came back with a gun and told that I would clear your accounts for ever and Mohanlal asked to kill the bastard then suddenly Mewaram fired the gun at Deputy Singh as a result thereof the fire hit on his chest and he fell down on the ground. On hearing the uproar Gurbachan Singh and Charan Singh reached on the site and when they challenged the accused persons then they went away towards their house."

From the aforesaid, it becomes clear that insofar as appellant Mohan Lal is concerned, he had given the exhortation "to kill the bastard". On the same lines, Harbans Singh made the statement as P.W. 1 in the Court as well. Though not stated by the complainant in the F.I.R. or even in the Court, it has come on record that during scuffle that had taken place even appellant Mohan Lal was injured. In fact, the precise version has come on record, that too from the testimony of P.W. 2 (prosecution's own witness) that when he reached the spot after hearing the gun shot he saw Deputy Singh lying on the ground while blood was strained on his clothes and Mohan Lal was lying on the ground on one side. Mohan Lal was crying "killed, killed". In his cross examination, he further stated that deceased Deputy Singh had a lathi in his hand. It appears