IMPORTANT POINT
Causing death by negligence – For bringing home guilt of accused, prosecution has to firstly prove negligence and then establish direct nexus between negligence of accused and death of victim.

JUDGMENT :

Krishna Murari, J.

This Appeal challenges the judgment and Order dated 07.02.2017 passed by the High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru in Criminal Revision Petition No. 1048/2010 dismissing the Petition filed by the appellants herein. The High Court confirmed the Judgment and Order of the Trial Court and the First Appellate Court convicting the Appellants under Section 304(A) read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (for short 'IPC') and sentencing them to undergo Simple Imprisonment for 1 year and 3 months and penalty of Rs. 3000/- each with default stipulation of Simple Imprisonment for 3 months.

2. Facts shorn of unnecessary details as unfolded by prosecution are as under:

On 21.11.2003 at around 1.00 p.m Sri Uday Shankar S/o PW2 was watching TV in his house at Molakalmuru Town, New Police Quarter No. 13, when there was a sudden sound in the TV. Noticing the sound, the deceased got up to separate the dish wire, the TV connection wire and the telephone wire, which were entwined together. At this point, he felt an electric shock and his right hand was burnt and as a result of this shock he succumbed to death. Upon enquiry, during the course of investigation, it was found that Appellant No. 2, who was a daily wage worker working under the supervision of Appellant no. 1, an employee in the telephone department, had, while working on the DP Pole, pulled the telephone wire. The telephone wire got detached and fell on the 11 KV Power line and electricity passed into the telephone wire. At this time, there was a sound in the TV at PW2's house and as the deceased went to separate the telephone wire and cable wire, there was a short circuit and thereby, the right hand of the deceased was burnt and he died because of electrocution. It is further alleged that the said incident took place because of the negligent act on the part of Appellant/accused No. 1 and Appellant/accused No. 2.

3. The conviction of the Appellants/Accused rests on circumstantial evidence and the circumstances highlighted were as follows:

(1) PW1/doctor's report suggesting that death was due to instantaneous cardiac arrest and paralysis of the brain stem secondary to shock.

(2) Deposition of PW 9,10,16, who were Police Staff residing in the Delhi police quarters, stating that they also touched the telephones in their respective houses and felt the presence of electricity and immediately threw away the telephone instruments.

(3) Evidence of PW1/doctor, who stated that on the same day he had examined Appellant/Accused no. 2 for injuries as he had sustained a fall from the pole and an outpatient slip was also issued to him.

(4) Evidence of the Prosecution witnesses that the deceased upon hearing noise from the television set first switched off the main electricity switch and then tried to separate the wires. However, there was still current in the wires.

(5) Evidence of PW 15, who was a higher officer in the Department of Telephone stating that Appellant/accused no. 1 and Appellant/ accused no. 2 were on duty and working on that day.

4. The defence taken by the Appellants/accused is that on the day of the incident, they had not attended any telephone wire repair at the place of the incident and death of the deceased was not due to their carelessness and negligence. While the Appellants/accused have not denied the post-mortem report which attributes the death to instantaneous cardiac arrest and paralysis of the brain stem secondary to shock, the source of the shock is implied to be the television set and not the Telephone connection.

5. After giving our careful consideration to the respective submissions made by the learned Counsel for the parties and considering the facts and circumstances of the case and evidences on record even if we take that the Appellants/accused were in fact working on the DP pole on the day of the incident, we find it difficult to believe that with the alleged 11KV current running through Telephone wire, the wires did not melt; rather with