Moot Court Exercise- 1

Anoop was a fourth year student of Central Medical College. He was a very animated character
and was a known personality in the college campus. He was also a talented dancer and an actor.
He had a habit of pranking people and recording them for posting them on his YouTube channel,
named ‘Prankster Anoop’. Through these videos he had not only acquired a lot of fame but had
also developed some sour relationships amongst his peers, who were mostly the victims of his
pranks. Apart from this, once he even used a pepper spray in the class, during the lecture,
whereby many students were badly affected and some of them were even hospitalized. One of
the victims of his constant pranks was Vinisha, his batch mate who was known to be of short
tempered. She was a bright student and was a consistent topper of her batch. She had the record
of highest marks in the subject ‘Hemodynamics’. She was also brilliant in dramatics. Anoop used
to like her and also extended request of friendship to her which she refused. Because of her
refusal, he always used to tease/prank her in one way or the other. On one such occasion, she lost
her temper and slapped him in the college canteen. He, though apologized to her for his behavior
due to the fear of rustication, but never really meant to apologize. He instead swears to take
revenge for his disrespect.

Anoop and Vinisha, both of them were selected for an Inter-College Theater Competition, a
prestigious annual event. The theme for the competition was Medical Negligence vis-à-vis
Doctor’s profession. The broad theme of the play was to show the mental pressure felt by a
doctor while operating the patients and the misuse of section 304A IPC against doctors. In the
play one of the scenes was that while doing operation doctor commits an error that results in the
death of the patient, despite their best attempt to save his patient. In this play the role of doctor
was played by Vinisha and Anoop played the role of the patient.

On 11th January 2019, at around 4:45 p.m. in the college auditorium the rehearsal for the play
was going on, showing the mental stress felt by a doctor in an operation theatre. The scene being
rehearsed was that, Vinisha was standing next to Anoop, who is lying on the operation table. In
the absence of any professor, Anoop again played a prank on her by spilling real blood on all
over Vinisha’s body and started recording the video. Suddenly an altercation ensued between
them. Vinisha angrily started hitting Anoop with the kidney dish lying next to her on the
operation table; Anoop caught hold of kidney dish and snatched the dish from her hand. In spur
of the moment, as Anoop was getting down from the table, Vinisha took an empty syringe lying
on the table and pierced it on the neck of Anoop with full vigor.

Thereafter students in the auditorium interfered and separated both of them. Meanwhile, Anoop
took out the syringe from the back his neck, and while getting down from the operation table,
collapsed on the floor. At 5:10 p.m., he was rushed to hospital within the campus, by the students
present in the auditorium, where he was declared brought dead. Subsequently, the family of
deceased and the police both arrived at the spot. The police then sent the deceased’s body for an
autopsy and started the investigation. As upon the investigation the whole incident was narrated
by the students present inside the auditorium to the police officials.

At 8:00 p.m., police took Vinisha (hereinafter ‘accused’) into the custody in the charge of murder
of the Anoop (hereinafter ‘deceased’). The 60 ml syringe fully empty was found in the
auditorium was marked as article ‘P-1’. The finger print report confirmed two finger prints on
article ‘P-1’, both of the accused and the victim. The DNA report confirmed the blood found on
the needle of article ‘P-1’was that of that of the victim. The chemical report gave a negative
report as to presence of any foreign substance in article ‘P-1’.The autopsy report revealed that
the cause of death was due to cardiac arrest occurred due to ‘air embolism’ in carotid artery
caused due to the injecting of the air into the artery on the neck, and observed that “a large
amount of air remaining in carotid artery caused the obstruction of left common carotid artery
inflow tract leading to cardiac arrest. Though in ordinary course of nature such injury would not
cause death but in the particular case the nature of syringe [60 ml] can create a large air bubble
enough to cause cardiac arrest.”

The Judicial Magistrate I took the cognizance of the offence and committed the case to the
Session Courts, who held accused guilty under section 300, IPC (thirdly, read with Exception 1)
and sentenced her for 10 years of imprisonment under section 304, IPC. The court held that she
intended to cause the bodily injury sufficient in ordinary cause of nature to cause the death of the
deceased, as she was fully aware of the consequence of the injecting an empty syringe into
someone’s neck but did it upon the grave and sudden provocation. In appeal, the High Court
without changing the quantum of punishment held accused guilty under section 299, IPC. The
Sessions Court and High Court rejected the argument of defense that there was no intention to
cause hurt, or intention to cause death or to cause bodily injury sufficient in ordinary cause of
nature likely to cause death or any knowledge thereof. The accused contented that it was a mere
unfortunate incident and claimed acquittal.

Now the case is pending for final arguments in Supreme Court of India against the order of
conviction of the High Court. Argue.