Response Paper- IPC II Satish Chand Singhal v. State of Rajasthan 2007 CriLJ 4132 SrijanMehrotra 2010/B.A.LL.B.

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The facts here are that a petitioner has filed a case against the order of the Civil Judge (Jr. Division) & Judicial Magistrate, Kathumar, District Alwar. Here a person named Satish Chandra Singhal was trying to repair his telephone wires and in the process of repairing, the telephone wire and the KV-11 wire touched each other causing damage to the telephone exchange. Therefore, the telephone department filed a case and numbers of charges were framed. The matter with which this paper would be dealing is the charge of mischief under section 25 of the IPC1 which was been brought to the notice of the court. Before mentioning what the high court order it would be very important to point out section 425 of the IPC: Section 425- Mischief- Whoever with intent to cause, or knowing that he is likely to cause, wrongful loss or damage to the public or to any person, causes the destruction of any property, or any such change in any property or in the situation thereof as destroys or diminishes its value or utility, or affects it injuriously, commits "mischief.2 The Honourable high court in its judgment convicted the petitioner under section 425 of the IPC A person with the slightest intelligence would of course know that live wires carrying electricity are dangerous objects to play with and in case two wires were to meet the damage caused to property and life would be immense. Thus, even at the preliminary stage the knowledge can be attributed to the petitioner3 It would be important to point out the principle on which section 425 is based on the principle of enunciated in the maxim sic utre tuo ut allenum non leadads, which means that one should use its own property in such a manner that should not injure your neighbours property. It shall be important to point out that the court has said tow things in the application of this section one is that either one should have knowledge of doing the act or one should have the
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Indian Penal Code, 1860. Indian Penal Code, 1860 3 2007CriLJ 4132 Raj.

intent. It is important to point that therefore under section 425 the condition which should be satisfied that either one shall have the intent to cause or knowledge that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or to any person.4 In the opinion of the researcher that the court went in contravention with the principal of section 425 of the IPC i.e. the court made the petitioner culpable applying the Reasonable man test either subjectively or objectively. The basis of the judgement is the objective test which is that taking into all the conditions and considering that the act was done by the accused then what would the third person would infer i.e. whether he did an act intentionally or have the knowledge that an act would have such a result.5 It works on the principle that if this act is looked from the eyes of third person who may constitute to which class this person belong this test comes into play. 6 Now it is important to point out what is the basis of subjective test in the case of criminal liability the subjective test comes into picture that if on someone a liability has to be imposed then that person must have freely chosen to engage in the relevant conduct, after knowing all the consequences or risks of doing what he is doing, and therefore having made a personal decision which can be condemned and treated as justification for the imposition of punishment.7 Therefore, key difference which according to the researcher is on the element of knowledge. It would be very important to point out that if we apply the objective test then one doesnt take into account the difference of response of a person to a certain situation. Everyman has the different set of mind and he reacts accordingly. Therefore, behaviour varies within individuals, depending on how well they use their capacities. Therefore here is the intention of the drafters was to look at the knowledge of the accused and not of any reasonable man. The reasonable man" is found in many places in the common law, such in the law of intentional torts, where an unwanted touching is a battery only if it would be deemed offensive by the reasonable man", and in criminal law, where a homicide is excused on the

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Murugappa v. Morungamuthu , (1937) MWN 1238 The Objective and Subjective Test in Provocation, available at: http://www.legalnorms.com/provocation.php 6 Randy T. Austin, Better Off with the Reasonable Man Dead or The Reasonable Man Did the Darndest Things, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIV. L. REV. (1992), 479. 7 Ordinary and Reasonable People: the design of objective tests of criminal responsibility, Eric Colvin(2001), available at: http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=law_pubs

grounds of self-defense if the defendant had a reasonable fear of imminent death or severe bodily harm.8 Here the researcher as such is not challenging the objectivity test but it shall be taken in to account that in law when it comes to reasonableness there is a difference between as a matter of fact" and as a matter of law". Here the judges shall try to defend their decision on matter of law which has been totally overlooked in this case as this section clearly pertains to the knowledge of that person and not of a reasonable man. Because if we will see that every person behave differently at a certain set of situation then everything would change.9 Therefore, the researcher is of the opinion that using objective test in the application of Section 425 would not give us justice.

Alan D. Miller, The Reasonable Man" and other legal standards, SOCIAL SCIENCE WORKING PAPER 1277, California Institute of Technology. 9 E. Dokow and R. Holzman. Aggregation of binary opinion. Working Paper, 2005.