Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
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			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
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		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
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		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
			'observations' => null,
			'overruledby' => null,
			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
			'ratiodecidendi' => '',
			'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
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$title_for_layout = 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | '
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		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
		'deposition' => '',
		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
		'ratiodecidendi' => '',
		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
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criminal - death sentence awarded to minor - sections 148, 149 and 302 of indian penal code, 1860 - appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - session judge convicted appellant for offence under section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - high court maintained conviction and death sentence - hence, present appeal - appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - the seminal trends in.....

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			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
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E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
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		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
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p.n. bhagwati, j.1. this appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. the appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under section 302 of the penal code. the question is : should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? to answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.2. the appellant and a few others were tried in the court of the sessions judge, union for offences under section 148 and section 302 read with section 149 of the indian penal code. the learned sessions judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, sheo dayal, mihi lal, dularey and mewa lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one ram kumar by.....

Judgment:

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			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
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E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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P.N. Bhagwati, J.

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
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			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
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E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
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		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'favorof' => null,
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
		'observations' => null,
		'overruledby' => null,
		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
	(int) 10 => '<p>'
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1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
			'observations' => null,
			'overruledby' => null,
			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
			'ratiodecidendi' => '',
			'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
			'sub' => 'Criminal',
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			'circuit' => null
		)
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	'casename_url' => 'harnam-vs-state-u-p',
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$title_for_layout = 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | '
$desc = array(
	'Judgement' => array(
		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
		'deposition' => '',
		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
		'observations' => null,
		'overruledby' => null,
		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
		'ratiodecidendi' => '',
		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
		'sub' => 'Criminal',
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		'circuit' => null
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$content = array(
	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
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		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
	(int) 10 => '<p>'
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3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice

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	'title_for_layout' => 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | ',
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		'Judgement' => array(
			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
			'observations' => null,
			'overruledby' => null,
			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
			'ratiodecidendi' => '',
			'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
			'sub' => 'Criminal',
			'link' => null,
			'circuit' => null
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$title_for_layout = 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | '
$desc = array(
	'Judgement' => array(
		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
		'deposition' => '',
		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
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4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.

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			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'favorof' => null,
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
		'observations' => null,
		'overruledby' => null,
		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
		'ratiodecidendi' => '',
		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
		'sub' => 'Criminal',
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		'circuit' => null
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:

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	'title_for_layout' => 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | ',
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		'Judgement' => array(
			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
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E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.

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			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
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			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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	'Judgement' => array(
		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
		'observations' => null,
		'overruledby' => null,
		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
		'ratiodecidendi' => '',
		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
	(int) 10 => '<p>'
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We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
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			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
			'observations' => null,
			'overruledby' => null,
			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
			'ratiodecidendi' => '',
			'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
			'sub' => 'Criminal',
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			'circuit' => null
		)
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	'casename_url' => 'harnam-vs-state-u-p',
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$title_for_layout = 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | '
$desc = array(
	'Judgement' => array(
		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
		'deposition' => '',
		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
		'observations' => null,
		'overruledby' => null,
		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
		'ratiodecidendi' => '',
		'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
		'sub' => 'Criminal',
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		'circuit' => null
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$content = array(
	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.

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			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
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			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
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			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
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			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
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		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
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E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
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		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
	(int) 10 => '<p>'
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6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.

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	'title_for_layout' => 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | ',
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		'Judgement' => array(
			'id' => '645166',
			'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
			'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
			'appellant' => 'Harnam',
			'authreffered' => '',
			'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
			'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
			'caseanalysis' => null,
			'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
			'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
			'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
			'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
			'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
			'court_type' => 'SC',
			'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
			'deposition' => '',
			'favorof' => null,
			'findings' => null,
			'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
			'judgement' => '<p style="text-align: justify;">P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p style="text-align: justify;">4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">',
			'observations' => null,
			'overruledby' => null,
			'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
			'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
			'ratiodecidendi' => '',
			'respondent' => 'State of U.P.',
			'sub' => 'Criminal',
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			'circuit' => null
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$title_for_layout = 'Harnam Vs State of U P - Citation 645166 - Court Judgment | '
$desc = array(
	'Judgement' => array(
		'id' => '645166',
		'acts' => 'Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)',
		'appealno' => 'Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974',
		'appellant' => 'Harnam',
		'authreffered' => '',
		'casename' => 'Harnam Vs. State of U.P.',
		'casenote' => 'Criminal - Death sentence awarded to minor - Sections 148, 149 and 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Appellant and his companions formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object appellant had intentionally caused death of deceased by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in most brutal and inhuman manner - Session judge convicted appellant for offence under Section 148 and 302/149 and sentence him to death - High Court maintained conviction and death sentence - Hence, present appeal - Appellant was only sixteen years at the time of commission of offence - Whether minority of appellant can be regarded as valid circumstances for invoking clemency of penal justice - The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel &amp; savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases - Law commission in its 35 report had indicated that a person who was less than 18 years of age at time of commission of offence he should not be sentence to death which was accepted by Central Government - Held, death sentence awarded to be appellant liable to be converted to life imprisonment.         
 - CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 141; [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ]  Precedent  Held, A decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a Judges decision binding a party is the principle upon which the case is decided and for this reason it is important to analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi. According to well settled theory of precedents, every decision contains three basic postulates  (i) findings of material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct, or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of  the principles of law applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii) judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court has been decided is alone binding as a precedent. Courts should not place reliance on decisions without discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed. Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclids theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken out of their context. These observations must be read in the context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become necessary for Judges to embark into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact may make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is not proper. -- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. Section 2(s): [Dr. Arijit Pasayat & P. Sathasivam, JJ] Workman  Daily wager, peon attached to Public Prosecutor is not a workman, as Law Department cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as industry.  -  This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J. ' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence.',
		'caseanalysis' => null,
		'casesref' => 'E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra;',
		'citingcases' => '
E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh	Discussed

',
		'counselplain' => ' A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs',
		'counseldef' => ' O.P. Rana, Adv.',
		'court' => 'Supreme Court of India',
		'court_type' => 'SC',
		'decidedon' => '1975-10-10',
		'deposition' => '',
		'favorof' => null,
		'findings' => null,
		'judge' => ' P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.',
		'judgement' => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.</p><p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.</p><p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.</p><p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice</p><p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.</p><p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:</p><p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.</p><p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.</p><p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.</p><p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p></p><p>',
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		'prhistory' => 'Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973',
		'pubs' => 'AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)',
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	(int) 0 => '<p>P.N. Bhagwati, J.',
	(int) 1 => '<p>1. This appeal, by special leave, is limited only to the question of sentence. The appellant has been sentenced to death for an offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code. The question is : Should the extreme penalty of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment? To answer the question it is necessary to state a few facts.',
	(int) 2 => '<p>2. The appellant and a few others were tried in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Union for offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on an appreciation of the evidence, found that the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal had formed an unlawful assembly and in pursuance of its common object, the appellant had intentionally caused the death of one Ram Kumar by inflicting on him a severe injury with a banka severing his head from the body and then carried away the head in an angaucha in a most brutal and inhuman fashion. On this finding, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa lal of offences under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 and sentenced each of them to rigorous imprisonment for one year for the former offence and to death for the latter. The appellant, Sheo Dayal, Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewa Lal preferred an appeal to the High Court against the order of conviction and sentence recorded against them and their case was also referred to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence. The High Court agreed with the finding reached by the learned, Session Judge and confirmed the conviction of Sheo Dayal Mihi Lal, Dularey and Mewalal under Section 148 and Section 302 read with Section 149 but reduced their sentence to one of life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 149 and so far as the appellant was concerned, the conviction was converted to one under Section 302 and the sentence of death was maintained. The appellant thereupon preferred an application for special leave and on that application, special leave was granted by this Court limited only to the question of sentence.',
	(int) 3 => '<p>3. Now, there can be no doubt that the crime committed by the appellant was a most reprehensible and heinous crime which disclosed brutality and callousness to human life and no extenuating circumstances could be pointed out on behalf of the appellant which would assuage the conscience of the Court and persuade it not to inflict the extreme penalty of death on the appellant. The only circumstance on which reliance could be placed on behalf of the appellant for mitigating the rigour of the punishment to be inflicted on him was his tender age at the time of the commission of the offence. The record of the case shows that the appellant was about sixteen years of age at the time when he committed this brutal crime. The question is : whether this could be regarded as a valid circumstance for invoking the clemency of penal justice',
	(int) 4 => '<p>4. The legislative history in regard to the subject of capital punishment shows that there has been significant change in thinking and approach since India became free. Prior to the amendment of Section 367(5) of the CrPC by Act 26 of 1955, the normal rule was to impose sentence of death on a person convicted for murder and if a lessor sentence was to be imposed, the Court was required to record reasons in writing. But by Act 26 of 1955 this provision in Section 367(5) was committed, with the result that the Court became free to a award either death sentence or life imprisonment and no longer was death sentence the rule and life imprisonment the exception. Then again further progress was made in the same direction by Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) . That Section provides that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. It will be seen that the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that for murder, life imprisonment should be the rule and capital punishment the exception to be recorded to only for special reasons. It is only were, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances, there are special reasons that death sentence may be awarded, otherwise life sentence should be the ordinary rule. This legislative provision in the new CrPC clearly shows, as pointed out by Krishna Iyer J., in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1). 'that the disturbed conscience of the State on the vexed question of legal threat to life by way of death sentence has sought to express itself legislatively, the stream of tendency being towards cautious, partial abolition and a retreat from total retention.' The seminal trends in current sociological thinking and penal strategy, tampered as they are by humanistic attitude and deep concern for the worth of the human person, frown upon death penalty and regard it as cruel & savage punishment to be inflicted only in exceptional cases. It is against this background of legislative thinking which reflects the social mood and realities and the direction of the penal and processual laws that we have to consider whether the tender age of an accused is a fetor contra-indicative of death penalty.',
	(int) 5 => '<p>5. The Law Commission, in the 35th Report made by it on capital punishment fully considered whether the Indian Penal Code should specify the minimum age of the offender who can be sentenced to death and after examining the position under the Children's Acts of various States, it expressed the following opinion:',
	(int) 6 => '<p>We feel that, having regard to the need for uniformity, to the views expressed on the subject, and to the consideration that a person under 18 can be regarded as intellectually immature, there is a fairly strong case for adopting the age of 18 as the minimum for death sentence. We are aware that cases will occasionally arise where a person under 18 is found guilty of reprehensible killing, or, conversely, a person above 18 is found to be immature and not deserving of the highest punishment. A line has haweyer, to be drawn somewhere and we think that 18 can be adopted without undue risk.',
	(int) 7 => '<p>We, therefore, recommend that a person who is under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence should not be sentenced to death. A provision to that effect can be conveniently inserted in the Indian Penal Code as Section 558.',
	(int) 8 => '<p>The Law Commission in its 42nd Report on the Indian Penal Code agreed with this recommendation of the previous Law Commission vide paragraph 3.34 of the 42nd Report of the Law Commission. The Central Government appears to have accepted this recommendation and a provision to that effect is to be found in the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1972.This being the current sociological and juristic thinking on the subject, it would be legitimate for the Court to refuse to impose death sentence on an accused convicted of murder, if it finds that at the time of commission of the offence, he was under 18 years of age. Krishna Iyer, J., also pointed out in E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra) that 'where the murderer is too young the clemency of penal justice helps him', and a murderer who is below 18 years age at the time of the commission of the offence would certainly be 'too young'.',
	(int) 9 => '<p>6. The appellant in the present case was, as pointed out above, just around 16 years of age at the time when he committed the offence and, therefore, in the light of the above discussion, he would be entitled to the clemency of penal justice and it would not be appropriate to impose the extreme penalty of death on him. We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed on the appellant and convert it to one of life imprisonment.<p>',
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Subject	Criminal
Court	Supreme Court of India
Decided On	Oct-10-1975
Case Number	Criminal Appeal No. 277 of 1974
Judge	P.N. Bhagwati and; R.S. Sarkaria, JJ.
Reported in	AIR1976SC2071; 1976CriLJ1642; (1976)1SCC163; [1976]2SCR274; 1976(8)LC115(SC)
Acts	Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 148, 149 and 302; Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 354(3) and 367(5)
Appellant	Harnam
Respondent	State of U.P.
Appellant Advocate	A.N. Mulla and; N.S. Das, Advs
Respondent Advocate	O.P. Rana, Adv.
Cases Referred	E. Anamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh (supra
Prior history	Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated February 22, 1974 of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in Criminal Appeal No. 498 of 1973 and Capital Sentence No. 13 of 1973

Harnam Vs. State of U.P. - Court Judgment