Virsa Singh v. State of Punjab

1958 SCR 1495 · AIR 1958 SC 465

Court: Supreme Court of India (Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction)
Case: Criminal Appeal No. 90 of 1957
Decided: 11 March 1958
Bench: Vivian Bose, Syed Jaffer Imam, P.B. Gajendragadkar (judgment by Vivian Bose, J.)
Citation: 1958 SCR 1495
Equivalent citations: AIR 1958 SC 465 (as printed in the judgment)
Provisions: Indian Penal Code, 1860, s. 300 “thirdly” and s. 302 (now Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, s. 101(c) and s. 103(1))

Headnote

Murder · IPC s. 300 thirdly (BNS s. 101(c)) · Intention to cause a bodily injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death

The case, in the Court's words

The appellant Virsa Singh has been sentenced to imprisonment for life under s. 302 of the Indian Penal Code for the murder of one Khem Singh. He was granted special leave to appeal by this Court but the leave is limited to " the question that on the finding accepted by the Punjab High Court what offence is made out as having been committed by the petitioner." [SCR p. 1497]

Held

To put it shortly, the prosecution must prove the following facts before it can bring a case under s. 300, 3rdly " ; First, it must establish, quite objectively, that a bodily injury is present ; Secondly, the nature of the injury must be proved; These are purely objective investigations. Thirdly, it must be proved that there was an intention to inflict that particular bodily injury, that is to say, that it was not accidental or unintentional, or that some other kind of injury was intended. Once these three elements are proved to be present, the enquiry proceeds further and, Fourthly, it must be proved that the injury of the type just described made up of the three elements set out above is sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. This part of the enquiry is purely objective and inferential and has nothing to do with the intention of the offender. [SCR pp. 1500-1501]
Once these four elements are established by the prosecution (and, of course, the burden is on the prosecution throughout) the offence is murder under s. 300, 3rdly. It does not matter that there was no intention to cause death. [...] It does not even matter that there is no knowledge that an act of that kind will be likely to cause death. Once the intention to cause the bodily injury actually found to be present is proved, the rest of the enquiry is purely objective and the only question is whether, as a matter of purely objective inference, the injury is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. No one has a licence to run around inflicting injuries that are sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature and claim that they are not guilty of murder. [SCR p. 1501]
In considering whether the intention was to inflict the injury found to have been inflicted, the enquiry [...] proceeds on broad lines as, for example, whether there was an intention to strike at a vital or a dangerous spot, and whether with sufficient force to cause the kind of injury found to have been inflicted. It is, of course, not necessary to enquire into every last detail as, for instance, whether the prisoner intended to have the bowels fall out, or whether he intended to penetrate the liver or the kidneys or the heart. [SCR p. 1500]
In the absence of evidence, or reasonable explanation, that the prisoner did not intend to stab in the stomach with a degree of force sufficient to penetrate that far into the body, or to indicate that his act was a regrettable accident and that he intended otherwise, it would be perverse to conclude that he did not intend to inflict the injury that he did. Once that intent is established (and no other conclusion is reasonably possible in this case, and in any case it is a question of fact), the rest is a matter for objective determination from the medical and other evidence about the nature and seriousness of the injury. [SCR p. 1502]
The question is not whether the prisoner intended to inflict a serious injury or a trivial one but whether he intended to inflict the injury that is proved to be present. [...] But if there is nothing beyond the injury and the fact that the appellant inflicted it, the only possible inference is that he intended to inflict it. Whether he knew of its seriousness, or intended serious consequences, is neither here nor there. The question, so far as the intention is concerned, is not whether he intended to kill, or to inflict an injury of a particular degree of seriousness, but whether he intended to inflict the injury in question; and once the existence of the injury is proved the intention to cause it will be presumed unless the evidence or the circumstances warrant an opposite conclusion. [SCR p. 1503]

Result

The appeal is dismissed. [SCR p. 1504]

Editorial note: subsequent treatment

Applied in later Supreme Court decisions on the murder and culpable homicide distinction, including State of A.P. v. Rayavarapu Punnayya (1976) and Chunni Bai v. State of Chhattisgarh (2025).

The headnote consists of extracts from the Court's judgment, selected by The Daily Bench for convenience. The selection is not part of the judgment, is not a law report and should not be cited. It may contain errors; rely on the official judgment. Library reference TDB-LL BNS-103/01 is our own cataloguing label and is not a citation.