PrCL

Voluntary act

 Suleman Rahiman Mulani v State of Maharashtra

Facts: Appellant was driving the car when he hit a pedestrian and took him to
hospital but he was scrummed to his injuries.
Held:
Section 304A says "Whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or
negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide shall be punished with
imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with
fine, or with both."
To impose criminal liability under S. 304A, Indian Penal Code, it is necessary that the
death should have been the direct result of a rash and negligent act of the accused, and
that act must be the proximate and efficient cause without the intervention of another's
negligence. It must be the cause causans (immediate cause), it is not enough that it
may have been the cause sine qua non."
Appellant was acquitted.

 Om Prakash v. State of Punjab ( Actus Rea-Omission)

Bimla Devi was married to appellant and was ill-treated and barely given any food
(starved), she ran away.

Sec 307 of IPC "Whoever does any act with such intention or knowledge, and
under such circumstances that, if he by that act caused death, he would be
guilty of murder, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description
for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine; and,
if hurt is caused to any person by such act, the offender shall be liable either
to imprisonment for life, or to such punishment as is hereinbefore mentioned.
When any person offending under this section is under sentence of
imprisonment for life, he may, if hurt is caused, be punished with death."
For the purpose of constituting an attempt under s. 307, Indian Penal Code,
there are two ingredients required, first, an evil intent or knowledge, and
secondly, an act done."
The word 'act' again, does not mean only any particular, specific,
instantaneous act of a person, but denotes, according to s. 33 of the Code, as
well, a series of acts. The course of conduct adopted by the appellant in
regularly starving Bimla Devi comprised a series of acts and therefore acts
falling short of completing the series, and would therefore come within the
purview of s. 307 of the Code.

 In English law, the doctrine of joint enterprise derives from R v Swindall and
 Osborne (1846) where two cart drivers engaged in a race. One of them ran down
and killed a pedestrian. It was not known which one had driven the fatal cart, but
since both were equally encouraging each other in the race, it was irrelevant which
of them had actually struck the man, so both were held jointly liable.
Thus, the parties must share a common purpose and make it clear to each other by
their actions that they are acting on their common intention so that each member of
the group assumes responsibility for the actions of other members in that group.

(Defendant must take the victim as he finds him) (Egg Shell Rule) (Chain of causation) - R v
Holland (1841) 2 Mood & R 352, 174 ER 313
- The victim refused medical treatment for an infected wound inflicted by Holland. The
victim would likely have survived had he accepted the treatment.
- Law: The “but for” test is used: ‘but for the initial injury, would the victim have
died?’ Although the victim’s refusal of medical treatment broke the causal chain,
the defendant was the one who set off the chain therefore he is convicted of the
murder.

MENS REA

Intention :

i) Intention confined to motive: R v Steane

Facts : The appellant was a British radio announcer who was living in Germany during WWII.
With his family under threat he was forced to broadcast on the radio for the Nazis. After the
war, when he returned to Britain, he was charged with "doing acts likely to help the enemy
with the intent to assist the enemy". He was convicted at trial which he appealed.
Normally, merely the intent to broadcast would have sufficed this crime, however the
wording requires there to be intent to assist the enemy for a conviction. There was obviously
no intent to assist the enemy here; he was forced and threatened into doing it. Therefore,
the crime is not proven and the defendant must be acquitted. There can be no presumption
that merely doing the action implied his intent to help the enemy.
Ratio : If a crime includes a specific intention in its wording, this must be proven beyond a
reasonable doubt in order for a conviction to be entered - you cannot presume this specific
intention from the prohibited action; it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Oblique Intent : Oblique intent operates as a form of intention which may be used
to ascertain a defendant’s mens rea. It is mostly used where a direct intention
cannot be proven. In other words, oblique intention is bringing about another
consequence, which although the accused
foresaw as a probable consequence of the prohibited act claims that he did not intend.

Oblique intention arises where the result of an individual’s act is virtually

certain to arise, and the individual recognises this virtual certainty (R v
Woollin).
 A practical example of oblique intention in operation would be where
somebody has placed a bomb in a plane, intending to destroy the plane
for insurance purposes. If the bomb explodes, killing passengers, the
defendant may argue he does not have the requisite mens rea of murder,
because he acted with only the intention to destroy the plane, not to kill
anybody. However, in this case, oblique intention would be operable as it
is clear that the passengers’ deaths are a virtually certain consequence of
destroying the plane, and the defendant would have recognised this, too.

 R v Nedrick- Virtual Certainty Test

 Facts : The appellant held a grudge against Viola Foreshaw and, following threats to "burn
her out," he went to her house. He poured paraffin through the letter-box and onto the front
door, igniting it without warning.The house burned down, resulting in the death of Viola's 12-
year-old son, Lloyd. The appellant initially denied involvement but later confessed to police,
emphasising he didn't intend for anyone to die and claiming he only sought to frighten her.

 Nedrick poured paraffin into a woman’s letter box and started a fire, as a result of
which one of her children had died. He protested that he did not want anyone to die.

 The judge directed the jury that if death had been the highly probable result they
should convict on murder.

 He was convicted and appealed. The appeal was allowed since the judge had equated
foresight with intent, when in fact foresight is evidence of intent. Therefore to convict
based on foresight is only acceptable where the consequence is appreciated as
inevitable by the defendant, so that no other conclusion can be found except that he
intended what he did.

Keypoints:

 In murder cases, if it's not clear from a simple direction, the jury should understand that they
can't infer intention unless they're convinced that death or serious harm was almost certain
due to the defendant's actions and the defendant knew this. The decision lies with the jury
based on all the evidence presented.

 Intent can be deduced if these two conditions are present:

1. The outcome was nearly certain due to the actor's actions; and
2. The actor was aware of this near-certain outcome.
 Hyam v DPP.

The accused poured petrol through the letterbox of a door, stuffed newspaper through it and
set it alight. Two of The occupier’s daughters died in the fire. The accused claimed to have
started the fire only to frighten the occupants and that she had not intended to kill anybody.
The trial judge instructed the jury to convict the accused of murder if the facts established
that she knew that it was ‘highly probable’ that her act would cause death or serious bodily
harm. The accused was convicted of murder and the House of Lords upheld her conviction
stating that murder is committed by a person who has the intention to cause death or serious
bodily harm. To establish the mens rea of murder it was sufficient for the prosecution to
prove that when the accused performed the unlawful act knowing that it was probable that the
performance of those acts would result in grievous bodily harm, notwithstanding the fact that
the accused did not desire to bring about that particular result. Furthermore, in the
circumstances of this case the jury must have been satisfied that when the accused set fire to
the house she realised that it was highly probable that one or more of the occupants would
suffer death or serious bodily harm, and that she had deliberately exposed them to that
danger.

The guidelines formulated in R v Moloney16 appeared to have narrowed the broad

approach to the meaning of intention previously adopted in Hyam. Following a drunken
party, the accused shot his stepfather who had challenged him to see who could load,
draw and fire a shotgun in the shortest time. He may not have realised that the gun was
loaded when he aimed at point-blank range at his stepfather’s head, shot and killed him.
When directing the jury, the trial judge stated that they could convict the accused of
murder if they believed that he had foreseen that some bodily harm would probably
happen, that is, as a probable consequence of the unlawful act. Lord Bridge stated that if
specific intent is at issue, then the probability that the consequences of the accused’s
transgression was foreseen ‘must be little short of overwhelming before it will suffice to
establish the necessary intent’.17 Allowing the accused’s appeal against murder, and
substituting a conviction for manslaughter, Lord Bridge held that while foresight of
consequences belong to the law of evidence, it is something from which intention may be
inferred but it is not the same as intention. On this point Lord Bridge refused to follow
Hyam. It is not foresight of consequences but intention which constitutes the mens rea
for murder.

Transferred Malice
 https://www.drishtijudiciary.com/landmark-judgement/indian-penal-
code/emperor-v-mushnooru-suryanarayana-murthy-1912-22-mlj-333

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc_vlCC9TjI

 https://www.studocu.com/en-gb/document/university-of-kent/
criminal-law/case-note-ag-ref-no-3-of-1994-1996-2-all-er/4438764
( Manslaughter- Attorney- General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994)
[1997] 3 ALL ER 936 HOUSE OF LORDS)

Transferred malice

Case: R v Latimer-
 IPC section 301. Culpable homicide by causing death of person
other than person whose death was intended.—If a person, by
doing anything which he intends or knows to be likely to cause
death, commits culpable homicide by causing the death of any
person, whose death he neither intends nor knows himself to be
likely to cause, the culpable homicide committed by the offender is
of the description of which it would have been if he had caused the
death of the person whose death he intended or knew himself to be
likely to cause.

essentials
 Causes death,
 By doing an act with an intention or knowledge of causing the death
of a person or,
 Causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death,
 Causes the death of another person instead of the intended person.

Facts: In this case, the defendant, Latimer, had an altercation with another
man in a pub. During the altercation, Latimer intended to hit the man with
his belt but missed and struck a woman instead, causing her injury.

Legal Issue: The main legal issue in the case was whether Latimer could
be held liable for the injury caused to the woman, even though he did not
intend to harm her.

Decision: The court held that Latimer could be held liable for the injury
caused to the woman under the principle of transferred malice.
Transferred malice is a legal doctrine that holds a person responsible for
the intended harm to one person, even if the harm is actually caused to
another person.

Significance: R v Latimer is significant because it established the principle

of transferred malice in English law. This principle has been applied in
various cases to hold individuals responsible for unintended consequences
of their actions when the original intent was to harm someone else.

Knowledge

Knowledge, as contrast to intention, signifies a state of mental realisation in which the

mind is a passive recipient of certain ideas or impressions arising in it, while intention
 connotes a conscious state of mind in which mental faculties are summoned into
action for the deliberate, prior conceived and perceived consequences.

Case : Emperor v. Mt. Dhirajia, AIR 1940 (baby drowning case)-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6QxGB2RTqc

https://lawplanet.in/emperor-vs-mt-dhirajia-case-summary-1940-sc/

Recklessness and Negligence

R v Cunningham Test ( refer hand written notes)

Case : S.N. Hussain vs The State Of Andhra Pradesh
Facts: The appellant, S.N. Hussain, was a bus driver who was charged with being rash
or negligent in crossing the railway track when a goods train was about to pass the
gate. The charge sheet was filed against the appellant as it was considered that he was
reckless, careless, and negligent in striking out the railway. The appellant was
convicted by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh.
The court acquitted the appellant of
the charge under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Ratio : Rashness consists in hazarding a dangerous or wanton act with the knowledge
that it is so, and that it may cause injury. The criminality lies in such a case in running
the risk of doing such an act with recklessness or indifference as to the consequences.
Criminal negligence on the other hand, is the gross and culpable neglect or failure to
exercise that reasonable and proper care and precaution to guard against injury either
to the public generally or to an individual in particular, which, having regard to all the
circumstances out of which the charge has arisen, it was the imperative duty of the
accused person to have adopted.

Strict Lability

Elements of crime : Actus Rea + Mens Rea + Absence of defence = Criminal

OR Liability
Strict liability

 Just performance of an act us enough to constitute criminal liability.

Case : Sweet v Parsley ( refer hand written notes)

Case : R v. Prince (1875) - Mistake of Fact

Facts: Defendant ran away with a girl with her parent’s consent, the girl was 14
but she made him believe that she is 18. The statute he was convicted under
was silent as to the mental state required to make the act a crime. Defendant
appeals.
Held : The Court held that “Mistake of fact does not stand as a defense to a
crime where the statute making the act a crime contains no requirement of
knowledge of that fact to begin with. In this case the forbidden act is wrong in
itself and the legislature has enacted that if anyone does this act, he does so at
his own risk. The dissent believes that there can be no conviction of a crime
without a finding of criminal intent mens rea. A reasonable mistake of fact,
where the mistaken belief, if true, would not have resulted in the defendant
committing a criminal act, should be an excuse that is implied in all criminal
charges”.

Case : B (A minor) v DPP [2000]

Facts : A boy aged 14 was charged with an offence of inciting a child under 14 to commit an act
of gross indecency, contrary to section 1(1) of the Indecency with Children Act 1960. He had sat
next to a 13 year old girl on a bus and repeatedly asked her to perform oral sex with him. She
refused. The boy believed the girl was over 14. The Trial judge ruled that a mistake of fact could
not constitute a defence, so was found guilty of a criminal offence. He appealed.

Held : On appeal, the House of Lords reversed the decision. The House of Lords found that is
necessary for the prosecution to prove the absence of a genuine belief (not necessarily a
reasonable belief) on the part of the defendant that the victim was 14 or over. The House of
Lords found that mens rea is an essential ingredient unless Parliament has indicated a contrary
intention either expressly or by necessary implication (that the offence is one of strict liability).

Case: State of M.P. v. Narayan Singh - https://youtu.be/nw9dJr1gbXM?

feature=shared

Case : State of Maharashtra v. Mayer Hans George

-https://youtu.be/rpOYekGQpyM?feature=shared (actual case starts from 1:45)

Since Section 8(1) and Section 24(1) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act
put the burden of proof on the accused that he had permission to bring gold to
India, the question of mens rea does not arise. The court, in the case of State of
Maharashtra v. Mayer Hans George, coined the term luckless victim where the
respondent was held strictly liable for the act of bringing gold into India without
due permission. The court stated that in such cases where the legislature clearly
imposes liability on the mere act, the intent does not matter.