Listen to this articleLakshman Singh v State of Bihar (now Jharkhand)
Criminal Appeal No. 606 of 2021, Decided on July 23,
2021
BENCH– Dr. DY Chandrachud, M.R. Shah, JJ.
FACTS
In the present case, the accused persons belong to
another village and they came at the site of incident where the victim was
distributing the voters slip. The accused persons asked him to stop giving slips and to
handover the voters list. When denied by the victim, they assaulted him with
fists, slaps and lathis as a consequence victim sustained injury. Subsequently
the accused were tried and convicted under Section 323 and 147 of the IPC and
were sentenced to undergo six-month imprisonment. The contention raised by the
accused was that since no injury report was issued by the hospital hence the
accused cannot be convicted for the offence of Section 323 IPC. The contention
was denied by the High Court, aggrieved by that the accused file the present
appeal in Supreme Court.
ISSUE
Whether the production of injury report is sin qua
non for convicting the accused under Section 323 IPC?
HELD
The Supreme Court answered the above question in
negative and held that production of an injury report for the offence under
Section 323 IPC is not a sine qua non for establishing the case for
offence under Section 323. Court further held that it may be that there might
not be any serious injuries/visible injuries as a result the hospital might not
have issued the injury report. However, the Supreme Court observed that Section
323 IPC is a punishable section for voluntarily causing hurt. “Hurt”
is defined under Section 319 IPC as whoever causes bodily pain, disease or
infirmity to any person. Therefore, even causing bodily pain can be said to be
causing “hurt”. On the above
grounds the court upheld the decision rendered by the High Court and convicted
the accused under Section 323 and 147 of IPC.