Facts: German national travelling by plane carrying gold in a concealed belt. Plane landed at Bombay. He was unaware of new Indian Foreign Exchange regulations requiring declaration of gold.
Issue: Whether ignorance of law is a defence to strict liability offence?
Held (Majority): The offence under FERA was one of strict liability. Ignorance of law is no excuse (ignorantia juris non excusat). Mens rea was not required for this particular offence. The accused was found guilty.
Principle: Parliament may create strict liability offences where the statute’s language and purpose indicate that mens rea is not required.

Held: Where a statute creates an offence and the language suggests that mens rea is not required — it is a strict liability offence. The court must examine the purpose of the statute, the nature of the harm, and the language used. In regulatory offences concerning public health and safety, courts more readily imply strict liability. Mens rea may be excluded by express words or necessary implication.

Held: Death penalty should be imposed only in the “rarest of rare cases” where the alternative — imprisonment for life — is unquestionably foreclosed. The Court laid down a framework for identifying such cases:

• Manner of commission: Extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting, or dastardly
• Motive: Totally worthless reason; for gain; cold-blooded
• Anti-social/socially abhorrent nature: Multiple murders, murders of innocent children, helpless women
• Magnitude: Large-scale murders; enormous proportions
• Personality of victim: Murder of public figure, person of high standing

The Balance Sheet Test: Court must balance aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Only if aggravating circumstances substantially outweigh mitigating circumstances should death penalty be imposed.

Facts: Accused killed wife while suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Medical evidence showed he had delusions that wife was a witch.
Held: The defence of insanity under S.84 IPC (= S.22 BNS) was established. The accused was incapable of knowing the nature of his act due to schizophrenia. The test is whether, at the time of the act, the accused was capable of knowing the nature of the act and that it was wrong. Acquitted.
Principle: Medical evidence of mental illness does not automatically establish S.22; the court must determine the legal test of incapacity at the time of the act.

Facts: Accused, heavily drunk, shot a boy who refused to give up his seat at a feast.
Held: Voluntary drunkenness is not a defence for a crime where intention is not the gist of the offence. But where the offence requires specific intent — voluntary intoxication may negate that specific intent. In this case, murder requires intention. Evidence of drunkenness was relevant to determine whether accused had the specific intent to kill.
Principle: Voluntary intoxication can be used to negate specific intent but cannot excuse crimes that require only general intent or no intent.

Held: The right of private defence is a right of defence, not a right of offence. It is preventive, not punitive. There must be reasonable apprehension of danger. The court should not measure the right with golden scales. Minor injuries inflicted in self-defence which exceed what was strictly necessary do not necessarily take away the right — if the person acted in good faith in exercise of the right.

Held: The right of private defence is available even if the accused was the aggressor initially, provided the apprehension of serious harm arose after his aggression was answered. The right is judged from the subjective perspective of the person claiming it — did he honestly and reasonably believe that harm was imminent? Court should not apply hindsight in assessing whether force was excessive.

Held: Four conditions for right of private defence: (1) no aggression on accused’s part; (2) danger/apprehension of danger to body; (3) actual/imminent danger not imagined; (4) harm caused not disproportionate or in excess of necessity. The right is not available where the accused was the aggressor.

Facts: Wife committed suicide allegedly due to dowry harassment and cruelty by husband.
Held: For abetment to suicide under S.306 IPC (= S.108 BNS), there must be: (1) instigation of person to commit suicide; (2) by direct act or incitement. Mere harassment or cruelty may not be sufficient — must be proximate cause that drove the deceased to suicide. There must be a live link between abettor’s act and the suicide.

Held: For criminal conspiracy, the essential ingredient is agreement between two or more persons to commit an illegal act. Circumstantial evidence of conspiracy is permissible — direct evidence rarely available. Each conspirator is responsible for all acts done in furtherance of the conspiracy. Membership of conspiracy need not be proved by direct participation in every act.

Held: An attempt to commit a crime begins where preparation ends. Accused must proceed to actually commit the crime. In determining whether an act constitutes attempt or preparation, the court must look at the proximity of the act to the completion of the crime, the acts remaining to be done, and the intent of the accused. If the accused had gone beyond mere preparation and had done some direct act toward commission of the offence, it was an attempt.

Held: Common intention may develop at the spur of the moment during the incident — it need not be pre-planned before arriving at the scene. The court must infer common intention from the conduct of the accused. Active participation in commission of the crime is necessary; mere presence at the scene is not enough.

Held: In rape cases, the evidence of the prosecutrix (victim) deserves great weight. She is not an accomplice. The prosecutrix’s testimony, if found reliable and trustworthy, does not need corroboration. Courts must not re-victimise the victim by putting her modesty on trial. Conviction can be based on sole testimony of prosecutrix if credible.

Held: Sexual intercourse with a wife below 18 years of age is rape — regardless of the IPC exception (S.375 Exception 2). The court read down the exception to protect minor wives. The age of consent in India is 18 years, and marital rape of a minor cannot be condoned. The court applied the principle of constitutional validity — child marriage exception violated Art.14, 15, and 21.

Facts: Accused stabbed victim with a spear causing a penetrating wound in the abdomen. Victim died.
Held: For clause 3 of S.300 IPC (= S.101(3) BNS), the court must find: (1) there was bodily injury; (2) the nature of injury must be proved; (3) injury intended to be inflicted (not accidental); (4) injury was sufficient in ordinary course of nature to cause death. The intention to inflict the particular injury (not to kill) is enough — the subjective element is the intent to inflict the injury actually found; the objective element is sufficiency of that injury to cause death in ordinary course.
Principle: Murder under clause 3 does not require intention to cause death — only intention to cause the specific bodily injury that is objectively sufficient to cause death.

Held: Culpable homicide is the genus; murder is the species. All murder is culpable homicide but not all culpable homicide is murder. When culpable homicide is “most heinous” — it is murder. The distinction is: in culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the knowledge/intent falls short of the test laid down in S.300 clauses.