The court held that if a death is caused during a sudden fight without premeditation, in the heat of passion, and without the assailant acting cruelly or taking undue advantage, the offence falls under Exception 4 of Section 300 IPC, warranting conversion from Section 302 to Section 304 Part I IPC.

Judgment on Board

Per Ramesh Sinha , Chief Justice

Heard Mr. Anupam Dubey, learned counsel for the appellant as well as Mr. Sourabh Sahu, Panel Lawyer for the Respondent/ State.

1. The present appeal under Section 374 (2) of CrPC has been filed by the appellant against the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence dated 09.09.2022 passed by learned First Additional Sessions Judge, Balod (CG) in Sessions Case No. 36/2020, whereby

the appellant has been convicted and sentenced in the following manner:-

2. Brief facts of the case are that the on 02.01.2020, the complainant Khileshwar Prasad Sahu (PW/1) was chatting with other witnesses and the deceased Lalit Thakur at Bhatapara Chowk. At about 12.50 hours, the appellant came there, armed with axe and all of sudden, he gave the axe blow on the right temporal region of the deceased Lalit Thakur. When Khileshwar Prasad Sahu (PW/1) and Sukhchand @ Bhola (PW/2) tried to intervene, he also assaulted them by axe. The injured Khileshwar Prasad Sahu lodged report to the Police on which Dehatinalashi (Ex-P/1) was recorded by the Police for the offence under Section 302 and 307 of IPC. Inquest of the dead body of the deceased (Ex-P/16) was prepared in presence of the witnesses. The dead body was sent for its post-mortem to Community Health Centre, Gunderdehi where Dr. Ajay Pal Chandrakar (PW/10) conducted the post-mortem of the dead body of the deceased and gave his report (Ex-P/11). While conducting the post-mortem, the doctor noticed incised wound on right side of face/ neck region and opined that the cause of death is Cardio-respiratory arrest due to hemorrhagic shock as a result of excessive bleeding from a cut of major vessel of neck, the nature of the injuries is antemortem and mode of death is homicidal. The injured persons Sukhchand @ Bhola and Khileshwar Prasad Sahu were also sent for their medical examination to Community Health Centre, Gunderdehi, where they have also been medically examined by (PW/10) Dr. Ajay Pal Chandrakar who gave their medical report (Ex-P/12 and P/13) and found injuries on their body which were simple in nature. Spot Map (Ex-P/2) was prepared by the Police and (Ex-P/22) was prepared by the Patwari. Blood stained and plain soil have been seized from the spot vide seizure memo (Ex- P/4). The appellant was arrested on 03.01.2020 and his memorandum statement (Ex-P/6) was recorded. Based on his memorandum statement, blood stained axe has been seized vide seizure memo (Ex- P/7). Blood stained jacket of the appellant has also been seized from him vide seizure memo (Ex- P/8). The seized articles were sent for its query report to the doctor, who gave his query report (Ex-P/14) and opined that the injuries found on the body of the deceased as well as injured persons could have been caused by the said axe. He referred the seized articles for chemical examination for confirmation of presence of blood. The blood stained and plain soil, axe and jacket seized from the appellant, Gamchha, shirt and lower of the deceased were sent for its chemical examination to State FSL, Raipur, from were report (Ex-P/21) was received and according to the FSL report, blood was found on the send articles except for the plain soil and human blood was found on axe seized from the appellant and Gamchha of the deceased. The statement of the the prosecution witnesses under Section 161 of CrPC have been recorded and after completion of usual investigation, charge-sheet was filed against the appellant for the offence under Section 302 and 307 of IPC before the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Gunderdehi. The case was committed to the court of learned Sessions Judge, Bal