DUDH NATH PANDEY versus THE STATE OF U.P.

Citation: [1981] 2 S.C.R. 771 · Decided: 11-02-1981 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: Y.V. CHANDRACHUD · Disposal: Case Partly allowed

Cited by 5 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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771 
DUDH NATH PANDEY 
v. 
THE STATE OF U.P. 
February 11, 1981 
[Y. V. CHANDRACHUD, C.J. AND A. P. SEN, J.] 
Indian Penal Code-Section 302-For the offence of murder the nornial s~n­
tence is sentence of life imprisonment and not of death-Witnesses failed ta 
rtveal the whole truth-Considerations to be taken into account while dealing 
with the qurestion of sentence for the offence of murder. 
A 
B 
Concurrent findings of two courts below-Supreme Court, if could examine 
C 
their correctness. 
Plea of alibi-Its postulates. 
The prosecution alleged that when the appellant, a motor-car driver who was 
living as a tenant in the out-house of the bungalow belonging to the famil; of the 
deceased, developed a fancy for the sister of the deceased. His overtures created 
D 
resentment in the family and the deceased took upon himself the task of preventing 
the appellant from pursuing his sister. The appellant's effort to take custody of 
the deceased's sister through legal proceedings had failed; sometime later on a 
complaint to the police that the appellant had been making indecent overtW'es 
towards her he was arrested. A day before the day of the occurrence the appel-
lant was alleged to have threatened to kill the deceased if he oppooed his ( appel · 
lant's) marriage with his sister. It was further alleged that while the deceased 
E 
was returning home on his scooter after leaving his sister in the school where she 
was working as a teacher, the appellant fired a shot at him with a pistol at 
which the deceased fell dead instantaneously. 
He was convicted under section 302 J.P .C. and sentene:ed to death. 
order of conviction and sentence was confirmed by the High Court. 
On the question of sentence 
Tue 
HELD : 1. The Sessions Court and the High Court were right in convicting 
the appellant under section 302 l.P.C. [779 G] 
(a) The mere circumstance that two or more courts have taken the same view 
of facts does not shut out all further inquiry into the correctness of that view. 
F 
Concurrence is not an insurance against the charge of perversity though a strong 
G 
case has to be made out in order to support the charge that findings of fact 
recorded by more than one court are perverse. The merit of the normal rule 
that concurrent findings ought not to be reviewed by this Court consists in the 
assumption that it is not likely that two or more tribunals would come . to the 
same conclusion unless it is a just and fair conclusion to come to. 
[718 E-GJ 
2. While dealing with the question of sentence for the offence of mu;der, the ll 
normal sentence is the sentence of life imprisonment and not of death. If in a 
same conclusion unless it is a just and fair conclusion to come to. [778 E-0] 
772 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(1981) 2 S.C.R 
A 
balances do not choose to reveal the whole truth the Court while dealing with 
the question of sentence has to step in interstitially and take into account all 
reasonable possibilities having regard to the normal and natural course of human 
affairs. In the instant case it would be unsafe, on the evidence on record, to 
sentence the appellant to the extreme penalty of death. (780 HJ 
The appellant, a poor motor-car driver, must have been offended enormously 
B 
when the deceased abuse_d him that he was a man of two paise worth and that 
if he attempted to marry his sister he would break his hands and feet and that 
his poverty was being put up as the reason why his sister would not be allowed 
to marry him. 
The dispute thus assumed proportions of a fued over social 
status. The poor man was fretting that the rich man's daughter would not be 
allowed to marry him for the mere reason that he did not belong to an equal class 
of society. The appellant, rightly or wrongly, believed that the girl was not un-
C 
willi11g· to marry him. The incident of the previous evening could not be con-
sidered as affording "sudden" provocation to the appellant for thei crime commit-
ted by him on the following morning. It cannot reduce the offence of murder into 
a lesser offence, but the mental turmoil and the serue of being socially wronged 
through which the appellant was passing could not be overlooked while deciding 
the appropriate sentence. [780 B-D] 
D 
Secondly the fact that, apart from the gun-shot \vound, the deceased had no 
other injury on his person except an abrasion on the left side of the chest evidently 
caused by the gun-shot itself coupled with the fact that the scoo

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