Supreme Court frees two men in case of death of workers by electrocution

New Delhi: The Supreme Court freed two men of the charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder of two workers who were electrocuted in 2013 while repairing sign board of a shop, holding that there was no intention or knowledge on the part of the accused.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said, at the stage of consideration of discharge, the court is not required to undertake a threadbare analysis of the materials gathered by the prosecution.

"All that is required to be seen at this stage is that there are sufficient grounds to proceed against the accused. In other words, the materials should be sufficient to enable the court to initiate a criminal trial against the accused. It may be so that at the end of the trial, the accused may still be acquitted," the bench said.

At the stage of discharge, the court is only required to consider as to whether there is sufficient material to justify launch of a criminal trial against the accused.

"By its very nature, a discharge is at a higher pedestal than an acquittal. Acquittal is at the end of the trial process, may be for a technicality or on benefit of doubt or the prosecution could not prove the charge against the accused; but when an accused is discharged, it means that there are no materials to justify launch of a criminal trial against the accused. Once he is discharged, he is no longer an accused," the court said.

The court noted that according to the prosecution and accepted by the Trial Court and the High Court, the two accused persons had not taken proper care and caution by providing safety shoes, safety belt etc to two employees Salauddin Shaikh and Arun Sharma, though they were asked to perform the job of working on the sign board as part of decorating the front side of the shop which was approximately at a height of 12 feet from the ground level.

"Even if we take the allegation against the appellants as correct, we are afraid no prima facie case can be said to have been made out against the appellants for committing an offence under Section 304 Part II IPC," the bench said in its judgment on March 7, 2025.

The court called the incident as "purely accidental" saying no prima facie case can be said to be made out against the appellants Yuvraj Laxmilal Kanther and Nimesh Pravinchandra Shah, for committing an offence under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) IPC, not to speak of Section 304 Part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) IPC.

The court also observed that in any case, the Pune trial court only considered culpability of the appellants qua Section 304 Part II IPC as the committing magistrate had committed the case to the Sessions court, confining the allegations against the appellants to Section 304 Part II IPC and not Section 304A IPC.

After going through the facts, the court noted there was no intention on the part of the two appellants to cause the death or cause such bodily injury as was likely to cause the death of the two deceased employees. It cannot also be said that the appellants had knowledge that by asking the two deceased employees to work on the sign board as part of the work of decoration of the frontage of the shop, they had the knowledge that such an act was likely to cause the death of the two deceased employees, the court said.

The Maharashtra government's counsel made a reference to the Bhopal gas tragedy case 'Keshub Mahindra Vs State of MP' (1996) (Bhopal Gas Tragedy case) to justify the framing of charges for the incident of September 27, 2013.

The court, however, said the facts of the present case are poles apart from that case.

In the infamous Bhopal Gas tragedy, the bench said, 3,828 human beings lost their lives; 18,922 suffered permanent injuries; 7,172 suffered temporary disablement; 1313 suffered temporary disablement caused by permanent injuries; and permanent partial disablement was suffered by 2680 persons. This court, upon perusal of the material on record, had then held mere act of running a plant as per permission granted by the authorities would not be a criminal act, the bench said.

"However, considering the gravity of the incident, this court exercised power under Article 142 of the Constitution to hold a prima facie case was out for the accused to face trial under Section 304 A of the IPC," the bench said.

The court, however, said the trial court and the High Court fell in error in rejecting the discharge applications of the appellants Kanther and Nimesh Pravinchandra Shah, interior decorator and store operations manager respectively of M/s lntergold Gems Private Limited.

The FIR was lodged on December 04, 2013 at Vishrambag Police Station against the appellants for not taking proper care and caution and not providing any safety equipment like belt, helmet, rubber shoes etc to the two deceased employees. The appellants were charge sheeted for committing an offence under Sections 304A, 182, 201 read with Section 34 IPC.

The magistrate found materials to attract Section 304 Part II IPC. The sessions court also held there was sufficient material justifying framing of charge under Section 304 Part II read with Section 34 IPC.

The High Court on November 2, 2017 dismissed the revision petition.

In their arguments, the appellants contended neither any negligent or rash act was committed by the appellants nor any specific overt act can be attributed to them. Their counsel said the appellants have paid compensation to the legal heirs of the two deceased employees to the extent of Rs 5,91,180 (Arun Sharma) and Rs 5,20,584 (Salauddin Shaikh). They also provided employment to brother of Shaikh and took care of educational expenses of Sharmas children.