Criminal Law

Basdev v. State of Pepsu

AIR 1956 SC 488

Facts

Basdev was a retired military Jamadar.
He attended a wedding celebration.
He consumed a substantial amount of alcohol and became intoxicated.
During the feast, a young boy named Maghar Singh was seated in a place where Basdev wanted to sit or pass.
Basdev asked the boy to move.
The boy did not comply.
Basdev took out a pistol and shot him.
The boy died from the injury.
Basdev was prosecuted for murder.
He argued that his intoxication was so severe that he could not form the intention required for murder.
The courts had to determine the effect of voluntary drunkenness on intention and knowledge.

Whether Basdev’s voluntary intoxication negatived the mens rea for murder.
Whether knowledge should be attributed to an intoxicated accused as though he were sober.
Whether the evidence showed incapacity to form intention or merely reduced self-control.

Section 85 IPC protects a person intoxicated without knowledge or against his will where the intoxication destroys the required capacity.
Section 86 applies to voluntary intoxication.
Where an offence requires knowledge, a voluntarily intoxicated person is generally attributed the knowledge he would have possessed if sober.
Where an offence requires a specific intention, intoxication may be considered in determining whether that intention was actually formed.
Mere drunkenness, excitement or loss of restraint is not enough.
The intoxication must be so extreme that the accused was incapable of forming the particular intention.
Intention may be inferred from:
conduct before and after the act;
choice of weapon;
aim and manner of use;
speech and physical coordination.

Basdev had been drinking, and the Court accepted that he was intoxicated.
The question was the degree and effect of that intoxication.
His conduct showed purposeful coordination:
he recognised the boy;
he requested him to move;
he responded to the refusal;
he took out a loaded firearm;
he aimed and discharged it.
He was also capable of moving, speaking and interacting with others.
These facts were inconsistent with total incapacity to form intention.
The shooting was not an involuntary discharge caused by stumbling or unconscious movement.
Basdev deliberately used a deadly weapon against a person at close range.
Even if alcohol reduced his self-restraint and made him react violently, that did not remove criminal responsibility.
Voluntary intoxication cannot be used to excuse a person merely because drink made him more aggressive or unreasonable.
At minimum, the lethal nature of firing a pistol at a person carried knowledge of the probable consequence.
Under Section 86, such knowledge was attributed to him as though he were sober.
The surrounding conduct also supported the conclusion that he had actually formed the necessary intention.
The defence therefore failed both as a claim of incapacity and as an attempt to deny knowledge.

The Supreme Court upheld Basdev’s murder conviction.
His voluntary intoxication had not rendered him incapable of forming the required intention.
In any event, the knowledge attached to the deliberate use of a firearm was attributable to him.
Use this case for: voluntary drunkenness is not a defence unless it prevents formation of the required specific intention; ordinary knowledge is attributed as though the accused were sober.