Is a person guilty of murder if the injury inflicted by him was not intended to cause death? The Bombay High Court has ruled that mere injury marks on the body of a victim are not sufficient to declare the accused guilty of murder.

``A blow on a certain part of the body is not necessarily sufficient to infer that it was intended to be inflicted on that part of the body,'' says a ruling of the division bench of Justice Ashok Desai and Vishnu Sahai. The bench has acquitted one Pandit Vandar Patil, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Thane Sessions court for the death of one Indubai in the year 1988.

Patil's house was damaged by Kathod Patil's buffaloes. He got together three friends, who are co-accused but have now been acquitted, and assaulted Kathod. When Patil was inflicting knife wounds on Kathod, the latter's mother, Indubai intervened, and Patil struck her with the knife, wounding her in the bargain.

Indubai succumbed to her injuries immediately. As perthe post-mortem, she died of shock and haemorrhage from injuries to vital organs. The doctor said the shoulder injury, attributable to a knife, led to her death. As the case was committed to the Sessions Court, Patil was charged on many counts, including murder. Around 18 witnesses were examined, and the trial judge convicted Patil, who then appealed in the High Court.

Patil's appeal maintained that although his ``involvement in the incident'' cannot be denied, he cannot be held guilty of murder, especially since his intention was not to kill Indubai. The High Court, ruled: ``There was no subsisting malice or enmity between the victim and accused. The attack on Kathod and his mother was solely due to damage caused to Patil's house... The appellant merely inflicted a solitary knife blow on Indubai's person which cannot be termed intentional...''

While acquitting Patil of the murder charge (302 of IPC), the judges have however sentenced him to five years of rigorous punishment under section 304 of theIndian Penal Code, which deals with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Death sentence reduced to lifer

The High Court has not confirmed the death sentence of one Kamlakar Ghanshyam Khade, who was charged by the Sangli trial court with the brutal double murder of his sister Yogita and her infant son, Yogesh.

The High Court has granted Khade the benefit of doubt in the second murder, holding him guilty only of the sister's murder. As a result, Khade's death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.

The Khades, based in Kavlapur village of Sangli district, married off Yogita to a groom in Sangli. However, she did not get along well with the husband, and returned to her home after divorcing him. She later got involved with one Rajendra Khade, from the same village. Since her family did not approve of this, they married her off to one Vijay Sagare in an adjoining village.

When this marriage also failed to work, Yogita returned to her family and resumed her relationship with Rajendra.Thereafter, the two eloped, got married, and settled in Ponda, Goa. Two years later, they had a son, Yogesh.

They decided to return to Kavlapur to offer prayers to the deity. Yogita and her son were received by Rajendra's father, Dhanraj, at the bus stop. As they were walking home, Yogita's brother Kamlakar attacked her with a knife in the presence of her father-in-law. Yogita fell unconscious, along with her son.

Kamlakar went home and returned with a rope and slit Yogita's neck, an act witnessed by constable Srikant Patil. Kamlakar was immediately arrested. Although the Sessions court held him guilty of both the murders, the High Court expressed doubts over the sequence of events, particularly the role of the father-in-law, who was passively watching Kamlakar. The court felt that the stab wounds on Yogita's body are not accounted for, given the fact that the father-in-law did not react. The High Court held Kamalakar guilty of his sister's murder. The infant son seems to have died when he fell from hismother's arms. The court ruled that since the father-in-law's evidence cannot be relied upon, the child's death cannot be directly attributed to Kamlakar's assault.