‘Negligence, not murder’: Gujarat HC drops IPC 304 from engineers accused in 2007 girls’ hostel collapse case
Other charges framed against accused carry a maximum punishment of two years; 11 students killed in the staircase collapse
On the distinction between Section 304 and Section 304-A, the HC drew a clear line between. (File Photo) Holding that trial for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Indian Penal Code Section 304 requires “mens rea” — either “knowledge” or “intention” to cause death, the Gujarat High Court partly discharged four government engineers charged in connection with the 2007 collapse of a staircase at a Government Girls’ Hostel in Vyara that killed eleven students.
Justice H D Suthar, while deciding four connected revision applications, pronounced a common judgment on May 5 and held that even if the prosecution’s case was accepted in its entirety, the facts could only sustain a charge of causing death by negligence under Section 304-A of the IPC and not for culpable homicide under Section 304, which requires either intention or knowledge that death was likely to result. The court held that application of Section 304 for culpable homicide was “ill-conceived in the peculiar facts of the case.”
On the distinction between Section 304 and Section 304-A, the HC drew a clear line between, holding that Section 304-A “carves out cases where death is caused by doing a rash or negligent act which does not amount to culpable homicide” and “excludes all the ingredients” of culpable homicide and murder as defined under Section 299 and Section 300 of the IPC.
“Where intention or knowledge is the ‘motivating force’ of the act complained of, Section 304A will have to make room for the graver and more serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder or amounting to murder as the facts disclose. The section has application to those cases where there is neither intention to cause death nor knowledge that the act in all probability will cause death,” the court said.
The case
The case arises out of the incident of January 26, 2007, when a portion of the staircase of the Government Girls’ Hostel at Vyara suddenly gave way. Eleven girls were crushed under the debris. A complaint was filed at Vyara Police Station under Sections 304, 337, 338 and 114 of the IPC.
The four applicants had served as engineers in the Roads & Buildings (R&B) Department at Surat during the construction of the hostel, which began in 1989 and was completed in 1994. The case against them was that they had used inferior quality materials, ignored building codes, failed to ensure a proper load-bearing design, and had not acted on a letter from the hostel Principal dated December 30, 2006, just weeks before the collapse, requesting repair and maintenance of the staircase.
The engineers filed discharge applications in the sessions court which were rejected in March 2019, prompting them to move the High Court challenging the orders.
Taking the prosecution’s case about inferior materials, ignored building codes, unapproved load-bearing design and failure to act on the repair letter, the court said, “Even if these allegations are accepted as it is, it may be termed as ‘negligence’ on the part of the accused… Such defects can be termed as ‘negligence’ on the part of the accused, but it does not constitute any intention or knowledge about the alleged incident, more particularly, when the superstructure is still standing as it is and only the staircase has collapsed.”
Citing the precedents in similar cases, the HC held that the conduct of the engineers fits the definition of ‘criminal negligence’ which is “the gross and culpable neglect or failure to exercise that reasonable and proper care and precaution to guard against injury… which, having regard to all the circumstances out of which the charge has arisen, it was the imperative duty of the accused person to have adopted.”
The court found that “involvement of the accused prima facie cannot be ruled out considering the material available on record” for charges framed under Sections 337, 338 and 114 of the IPC, which provide for punishments relating to causing hurt and grievous hurt by rash or negligent acts, and abetment– carrying a maximum punishment of two years.
The counsel for the applicants, Jal Unawala and Tejal Vashi, argued that the construction was completed in 1994 and the collapse occurred 13 years later in 2007, and approximately 18 years after construction began. The advocates submitted that during the period, the building had stood tall, including the devastating 2001 Gujarat earthquake and even on the day of the collapse, “the building structure remained intact and only the staircase collapsed” and the engineers were not at the site.
The prosecution had submitted technical evidence reports as well as analysis of debris samples by the Gujarat Engineering Research Institute (GERI) proved that they were of inferior quality.
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