The mental element or mens rea required for an offence under S.307 of the Indian Penal Code is the intention or knowledge necessary for the offence of murder. The mental element described in any of the four clauses of S.300 is sufficient for an offence under S.307. The provisions of S.307 of the Indian Penal Code are clearly otherwise and English decisions are not safe guides to follow.

1. The accused person in this case, Sreedharan aged 42, was tried by the Additional Assistant Sessions Judge, Kottayam, on charges under S.307 and 324 of the Indian Penal Code. The charge under S.307 related to an assault with a knife on one Balakrishnan, who has been examined as PWl at the trial, and that under S.324 to an assult on Balakrishnan's brother, Karunakaran, who has been examined as PW. 2. The learned judge came to the conclusion that the mens rea necessary for an offence under S.307 had not been made out he seems to have thought that a clear intention to cause death was necessary and, in doing so, he relied on two decisions by a single judge of this Court in Moidu v. State of Kerala 1967 KLT. 223 and Isaac v. State of Kerala 1967 KLT. 689 -a third, more or less on the same lines, Krishnan v. Abdulla, 1968 KLT. 929 has been brought to our notice in the course of the hearing. He found the accused guilty under S.326 IPC. for the assault on PW.1 even so he had to rely on PW. 1's detention in hospital for over 20 days for holding that the injury, a disembowelling incised wound, was grievous! and under S.324 IPC. for the assault on PW.2; and he sentenced the accused to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 18 months for the former offence and for four months for the latter, the sentences to run concurrently. In calendar revision it was observed that the offence seemed to be really one under S.307 IPC.; but, obviously in view of the prohibition in sub-section (4) of S.439 of the Criminal Procedure Code against the conversion of an acquittal into a conviction, and the fact that it was possible to impose an adequate sentence for the offence without altering the finding of the court below, notice was issued to the accused only to show cause against enhancement of his sentence however, at the hearing, the propriety of the acquittal of the charge under S.307 IPC. and of the conviction actually recorded has been fully canvassed by both sides. The revision case came on for hearing before a single judge of this Court. He was of the view that the decisions relied upon by the Court below required reconsideration, and, in that view, he referred the case to a division bench that is how the case is now before us. Meanwhile, the accused had appealed against his conviction to the Court of Session. That appeal has been withdrawn to this Court and has been heard along with the revision case.

2. The case is really a very simple case. At about 7 P.M. on the 23rd March 1967, when the accused was in the tea-shop of one Kochu Mohammed with his newly married daughter and son-in-law, a verbal altercation arose between the accused on the one side and PW. 2, who was also in the shop, on the other. According to the accused, but not according to PW. 2, the latter used very abusive language. However that might be, the accused was so incensed that he beat PW. 2. The shopkeeper, Kochu Mohammed, and PWs. 3 and 4, who were also there, intervened and sent the accused and PW. 2 away in different directions. PW. 2 had not gone far when he met his brother, PW. 1, and complained to him of what the accused had done. PW.1 tried to pacify PW. 2 saying that they could question the accused about it the next day. The accused apparently overheard this, and he rushed up to PWs.1 and 2, pushing aside PW. 4 who tried to stop him, shouting that there was no need to put off the matter. Then ignoring PW. 1's expostulations, the accused drew the knife, MO.1 (a sharp, pointed knife with a blade five inches long) from his waist and stabbed PWs.1 and 2 with it one after the other. The stab on PW.1 was in the abdomen, and, as the medical evidence shows, it penetrated the abdominal cavity, cut the small intestines in as many as four places, and brought out the small intestines and mesentery, an injury doubtless sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature but from which PW.1 luckily recovered after 25 days in hospital. The stab on PW. 2 was in the back, and