Murder and Culpable Homicide

This blog will discuss the main aspects of culpable homicide and murder.This will give a quick insight to the vast and most important topic of IPC. Part 2 will discuss some of the same heading in detail and its exceptions.

Culpable Homicides and Murder

Part 1 

Often we find-

"All murders are culpable homicides but all culpable homicides are not murders." 

as a familiar question in almost all our law based exam, and get struck as how to answer this? Now we will read and understand the same in simple way.

All crimes comprise of two components mens rea and actus reus, if any of them is missing then the committed act did not fall under the ambit of crime.

 

Homicide etymologically comes from Latin word “homa” meaning man and “cide” meaning cut. 
The term means either the act of killing of one human being by another or a person who kills another. The Indian Penal code defines homicide as a killing of human being by a human being, it may be lawful or unlawful. Culpable homicide is further divided into two categories: 

• Culpable homicide amounting to murder.
• Culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Culpable Homicide: 

The word culpable derived from Latin word ‘culpabills’ which means worthy of blame and homicide means to kill.

It is defined as “Whosoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as it is likely to cause death or with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death , commits the offence of Culpable Homicide .” under Sec 299 of IPC. 

principle ingredients of Culpable homicide :

• Causing death of human being.
• The intention of causing death.
• The intention of causing a bodily injury that likely to cause death
• The knowledge of the act which is likely to cause death

Illustration 

• A induces B to put the snake at the place having the knowledge that C was sitting on the otherside of the door. Here, A is liable for the offence of culpable homicide, as he had prior knowledge that C was present in that area and his actions will lead to C’s death. Here, intention makes A liable to culpable homicide.
  
  
• E is diagnosed with a terminal illness and to live from day to day he needs certain drugs. G confines H in a room and prevents him from taking his medication. Here, G is guilty of culpable homicide.

Cases

 Reg. v. Govinda, 1876 

the accused had knocked down his wife, kept a knee on her chest and gave two to three violent blows with the closed fist on her face. This act produced extraversion of blood on her brain and afterwards, the wife died due to this. The act was not committed with the intention of causing death and the bodily injury was not sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. The accused was liable to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

RELEVANT PROVISION FOR CULPABLE HOMICIDE

Murder:

It can be defined as an aggravated form of culpable homicide. Murder is commonly understood as an act of killing human being intentionally (with knowledge of act) and unlawfully by another.
The term murder is derived from the Germanic word which means ‘secret killing’.
Under Sec 300 of IPC, there is no straight definition for murder which is provided but it is explained in reference with the previous section it reads as: 

“Except in the cases hereinafter excepted, culpable homicide is murder, if the act by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, or-

Secondly-If it is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the offender knows ‘to be likely to cause the death’ of the person to whom the harm is caused, or–

Thirdly-If it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, or–

Fourthly-If the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death or such injury as aforesaid.”

Illustration 

• X intending to kill Y by​​ poisoning​​ purchases poison and mixes the same with a glass of milk. He gives the glass to Z to serve it to Y. Z drinks the milk​​ and dies. 
  
  
• A snake charmer while showing his play claims to cure the snake bite. The deceased got himself a snake bite believing on assurance of the snake charmer. The snake charmer could​​ not​​ cure the deceased. The snake charmer is liable for Murder 

some of the famous murder cases:

• Arushi Talwar case( Noida Twin Murder Case)

The 14-year-old Arushi was murdered along with Hemraj Banjade who was 45 years old then. There were a lot of suspects on the list of the accused including Arushi’s parents. This case received a lot of media coverage and aroused public interest. It was held as Trial by Media. For a very long time, Arushi’s parents had been held under custody. Still, it is not clear whether it was Arushi’s parents or the other two servants that worked in her house. Though Arushi’s parents have been acquitted, yet no one knows who killed Arushi and Hemraj.

• Jessica Lal murder case

The case got highlighted with the heading ‘No one killed Jessica’ in the year 1999. The eyewitnesses had amnesia and there was hardly anyone who came forward to give an account of how an aspiring model was shot dead. Later people came to know that it was the businessman Manu Sharma who was refused by Jessica to serve liquor had shot her dead.

• Pramod Mahajan murder case

Pramod Mahajan was a politician in the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was killed in a broad daylight inside his house. April 2006 Pramod was shot dead by his brother, Pravin. After killing his brother, Pravin walked to the nearest police station to confess that he had shot his brother Pramod. Pravin was sentenced to life imprisonment and later on died due to brain haemorrhage.

RELEVANT PROVISION FOR MURDER

principle ingredients of Murder:

• Causing death of human being.
• The Intention of causing death
• Causing such bodily injury as the offender knows it is likely to cause death of a person.
• Knowledge that the act done is sufficiently dangerous that in all probabilities it must cause death, 

The most confusing aspect is ‘intention’ as in both the provisions the intention is to cause death. Hence, you have to consider the degree of intention of offenders. If the person is killed in cold-blood or with well-planned then it is murder because the intention to kill is in high degree. On other hand, person is killed without pre-planned, in sudden fight or in sudden anger because of somebody’s provocation or instigation, then such death is called the culpable homicide. Hence, whether the act done is culpable homicide or murder is a question of fact. 

The distinction between the two is in the ‘intention’ and ‘knowledge’ of the culprit in committing the crime.

Punishment for murder (Section 302)

The punishment for murder is provided under Section 302 of IPC. Under this section whoever commits murder is punished with:

• Death
• Life imprisonment
• Fine

Punishment for Culpable Homicide (Section 304)

Culpable homicide is not murder if it falls under any one of the five exceptions given under Section 300. Section 304 of IPC describes the punishments for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, that is:

• Imprisonment for life,
• Imprisonment for either description of a term extending up to ten years,
• Fine.

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