Litta Singh & Anr v.

State of Rajasthan

NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY

BHOPAL

Common Law Method

Project
On

Analysis of the Case:

Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan
AIR 2013 SC 2554

Submitted to

Prof (Dr) Ghayur Alam

Submitted by

Kunal Sharma

2013 BALLB 63
 Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan

Contents
Objective..........................................................................................................................................3
Concrete Facts.................................................................................................................................4
Material Facts considered by the court............................................................................................4
Concrete Decision............................................................................................................................5
Ratio Decidendi of the Case............................................................................................................5
 Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan

Objective
The objective of this project is to analyse the case Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan
and in furtherance of the objective, separate the material facts from the concrete and
immaterial ones and to determine the ratio decidendi of the case.
 Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan

Concrete Facts
The case has been filed under the Criminal appellant jurisdiction of Supreme Court of India,
citation : AIR 2013 SC 2554

On the day of the incident, hearing the voice MARO MARO coming from the side of lane in
front of the house of the complainant along with three more villagers ran towards the place from
where the voice was coming. There they saw that accused and his two sons Litta Singh and
Kalla Singh (appellants herein) were beating the victim in question with lathis and gandasi.
They inflicted injuries on head with gandasi and gave beatings with lathis. The complainant and
the others shouted upon which the appellants and the accused ran away from the scene and the
victim was taken to hospital wherein he died. On investigation the weapons of offence were
recovered from the accuseds house. The doctor found that all the injuries were ante mortem
and the deceased died due to shock and coma arising out of head injury.

Material Facts considered by the court

Maro Maro which means to assault or beat up was heard as opposed to Mardo
Mardo which means to kill.
The use of gandasi (sickle) and lathis as weapons against the victim.
The nature of the deceaseds injury i.e. ante mortem
 Litta Singh & Anr v. State of Rajasthan

Concrete Decision
The decision of the Supreme Court was given by P. Sathasivam, J (now CJ) and M.Y. Eqbal, J.

In the facts and circumstances of the case, in our considered opinion, the instant case falls
under Section 304 Part II IPC as stated above. Although the appellants had no intention to
cause death can safely be inferred that the appellants knew that such body injury was
likely to cause such death, hence the appellants are guilty of culpable homicide not
amounting to murder and are liable to be punished under Section 304 Part II IPC.22.

Accordingly, we modify the judgment of the trial court and the High Court and convert the
conviction under Section 302 to 304 Part II IPC, and sentence the appellants to ten years
imprisonment. The appeal is, therefore, disposed of with the modification in the conviction
and sentence as indicated above.

Therefore held that, although the appellants had no intention to cause death but it can safely be
inferred that the appellants knew that such bodily injury was likely to cause death, hence the
appellants are guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and are liable to be punished
under Section 304 Part II IPC.

Ratio Decidendi of the Case

The intention to cause death with the knowledge that the death will probably be caused, is
very important consideration for coming to the conclusion that death is indeed a murder with
intention to cause death or the knowledge that death will probably be caused.