Doctrine of Causa Causans:

Supreme Court of India
Sushil Ansal vs State Thr.Cbi on 5 March, 2014
Author: .....J.
Bench: T.S. Thakur, Gyan Sudha Misra
 REPORTABLE
 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
 CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICITION
 CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.597 OF 2010
Sushil Ansal Appellant
 Versus
State Through CBI Respondent
(With Crl. Appeals No.598/2010, 599/2010, 600-602/2010, 604/2010, 605-
616/2010 and 617-627/2010)
(V) Doctrine of Causa Causans:
75. We may now advert to the second and an equally, if not, more important dimension of the
offence punishable under Section 304-A IPC, viz. that the act of the accused must be the proximate,
immediate or efficient cause of the death of the victim without the intervention of any other persons
negligence. This aspect of the legal requirement is also settled by a long line of decisions of Courts in
this country. We may at the outset refer to a Division Bench decision of the High Court of Bombay in
Emperor v. Omkar Rampratap (1902) 4 Bom LR 679 where Sir Lawrence Jenkins speaking for the
Court summed up the legal position in the following words:
to impose criminal liability under Section 304-A, Indian Penal Code, it is
necessary that the act should have been the direct result of a rash and negligent act of
the accused and that act must be proximate and efficient cause without the
intervention of another negligence. It must have been the causa causans; it is not
enough that it may have been the causa sine qua non.
76. The above statement of law was accepted by this Court in Kurban Hussein Mohamedalli
Rangawalla v. State of Maharashtra AIR 1965 SC 1616. We shall refer to the facts of this case a little
later especially because Mr. Jethmalani, learned Counsel for the appellant-Sushil Ansal, placed
Sushil Ansal vs State Thr.Cbi on 5 March, 2014
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heavy reliance upon the view this Court has taken in the fact situation of that case.
77. Suffice it to say that this Court has in Kurban Husseins case (supra) accepted in unequivocal
terms the correctness of the proposition that criminal liability under Section 304-A of the IPC shall
arise only if the prosecution proves that the death of the victim was the result of a rash or negligent
act of the accused and that such act was the proximate and efficient cause without the intervention
of another persons negligence. A subsequent decision of this Court in Suleman Rahiman Mulani v.
State of Maharashtra AIR 1968 SC 829 has once again approved the view taken in Omkar
Ramprataps case (supra) that the act of the accused must be proved to be the causa causans and not
simply a causa sine qua non for the death of the victim in a case under Section 304-A of the IPC.
78. To the same effect are the decisions of this Court in Rustom Sherior Irani v. State of
Maharashtra 1969 ACJ 70; Balchandra @ Bapu and Anr. v. State of Maharashtra AIR 1968 SC 1319;
Kishan Chand v. State of Haryana (1970) 3 SCC 904; S.N Hussain v. State of A.P. (1972) 3 SCC 18;
Ambalal D. Bhatt v. State of Gujarat (1972) 3 SCC 525 and Jacob Mathews case (supra).
79. To sum up: for an offence under Section 304-A to be proved it is not only necessary to establish
that the accused was either rash or grossly negligent but also that such rashness or gross negligence
was the causa causans that resulted in the death of the victim. As to what is meant by causa causans
we may gainfully refer to Blacks Law Dictionary (Fifth Edition) which defines that expression as
under:
The immediate cause; the last link in the chain of causation.
80. The Advance Law Lexicon edited by Justice Chandrachud, former Chief Justice of India defines
Causa Causans as follows:
the immediate cause as opposed to a remote cause; the last link in the chain of
causation; the real effective cause of damage
81. The expression proximate cause is defined in the 5th edition of Blacks Law Dictionary as
under:
That which in a natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any efficient,
intervening cause, produces injury and without which the result would not have
occurred. Wisniewski vs. Great Atlantic & Pac. Tea Company 226 Pa. Super 574, 323
A2d, 744,
748. That which is nearest in the order of responsible causation. That which stands
next in causation to the effect, not necessarily in time or space but in causal relation.
The proximate cause of an injury is the primary or moving cause, or that which in a
natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause,
produces the injury and without which the accident could not have happened, if the
injury be one which might be reasonably anticipated or foreseen as a natural
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consequence of the wrongful act. An injury or damage is proximately caused by an
act, or a failure to act, whenever it appears from the evidence in the case, that the act
or omission played a substantial part in bringing about or actually causing the injury
or damage; and that the injury or damage was either a direct result or a reasonably
probable consequence of the act or omission.