Killer cannot claim he did it in self-defence: SC

Killer cannot claim he did it in self-defence: SC A killer cannot claim that he committed the crime in self-defence unless he or his property faces a danger and immediate aid from the state machinery is not readily available, the Supreme Court has said. "The necessary corollary is that the violence which the citizen defending himself or his property is entitled to use must not be unduly disproportionate to the injury which is sought to be averted or which is reasonably apprehended and should not exceed its legitimate purpose," a bench of Justices S B Sinha and H S Bedi observed. According to the apex court, such a person is entitled to protect himself by using force, which may result in the death of the would-be killer, only if government agencies are not there to come to his rescue. The apex court passed the observations while rejecting the plea of some persons sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder allegedly linked to political rivalry in Madhya Pradesh's Kanthari village. The bench said it was neither possible, nor prudent to lay down abstract parameters which can be applied to determine as to whether the means and force adopted by the threatened person was proper or not. "Answer to such a question depends on a host of factors like the prevailing circumstances at the spot, his feelings at the relevant time, the confusion and the excitement depending on the nature of assault," the apex court observed. The accused Kuber Singh, Bhupinder Singh and Kuber Singh had sought quashing of the life sentence on the ground that they killed Prem Singh after he assaulted them in a scuffle arising out of some political rivalry on 25th October. The session’s court had sentenced the accused to life imprisonment which was affirmed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, following which they appealed in the apex court. However, the apex court after perusing the evidence on record noted that it was the accused that had gone to the deceased's house armed with deadly weapons and fired at him after a row. The court said the accused cannot take the plea of exercising the right of self-defence, the apex court said. But the apex court altered the conviction from Section 302 IPC (murder) to 304 Part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and accordingly reduced the sentence to 10 years RI for each of them.

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