This judgment decides only the three appeals before the Court — those of accused Nos. 1, 3 and 4. Accused No. 2, Satish Dulgaj, had filed Criminal Appeal No. 790 of 2016; he expired on 3 November 2025 and his appeal was disposed of by a separate order dated 28 August 2026, so it is not decided by this common judgment. The 20-year term imposed on accused No. 1 is without statutory remission, but the Court records that the constitutional remedies of remission and commutation under Articles 72 and 161 remain available. The acquittal of accused Nos. 3 and 4 is of murder only; their convictions under Section 323 of the IPC stand.
- Case
- Jitendra Fakirchand Rana v. State of Maharashtra
- Court
- High Court of Bombay
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026:BHC-AS:45333-DB
- Bench
- M. S. Karnik; Sandesh D. Patil
- Judgment by
- Sandesh D. Patil
- Case numbers
- Crl. A. 439/2016; Crl. A. 381/2016; Crl. A. 840/2016
- Outcome
- Criminal Appeals Nos. 439, 381 and 840 of 2016 partly allowed. Accused No. 1's conviction under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC is sustained; his sentence of imprisonment for life for the remainder of his natural life is altered to rigorous imprisonment for 20 years without any statutory remission. Accused Nos. 3 and 4 are acquitted of the offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The rest of the sentences imposed by the trial court are confirmed; all pending interim applications stand disposed of.
The decision
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justices M. S. Karnik and Sandesh D. Patil, has partly allowed the appeals in the 2011 Keenan–Ruben murder case, reducing the principal convict's sentence and acquitting two of his co-accused of murder.
The judgment, delivered on 5 November 2026, sustains the murder conviction of accused No. 1, Jitendra Fakirchand Rana @ Chaina, under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, but alters his sentence from imprisonment for life for the remainder of his natural life to rigorous imprisonment for 20 years without any statutory remission. Accused No. 3, Sunil Omprakash Both @ Chota, and accused No. 4, Deepak Ishwar Piwal, are acquitted of murder; their Section 323 convictions for voluntarily causing hurt stand. The rest of the trial court's sentences are confirmed.
The night of 20 October 2011
On the night of 20 October 2011, the complainant, Avinash Solanki, and six friends — three women and three men, including Keenan Santos and Ruben Fernandez — had dinner at the Amboli Bar and Kitchen Restaurant in Andheri West, Mumbai, after watching a cricket match. The four men went to a paan shop nearby while the women went to the washroom.
As the women came down the hotel staircase, one of the accused, wearing a white Pathani dress, made a “shuk... shuk...” sound, passed a derogatory comment on one of the women, blinked at her and molested her. When Keenan confronted the group and asked whether they had no mothers and sisters at home, the accused abused them; after Avinash Solanki slapped accused No. 1, they threatened to return, and left.
Ten to fifteen minutes later the accused returned carrying weapons: accused Nos. 1 and 2 carried knives, accused No. 3 a cricket stump and accused No. 4 a bamboo. Accused No. 1 stabbed Keenan repeatedly in the stomach and arm; when Ruben tried to help, accused No. 2 stabbed him in the stomach. Keenan died within ten to fifteen minutes of admission to Kokilaben Hospital; Ruben, taken first to Cooper Hospital and then to Kokilaben Hospital, also died of his stab injuries. D. N. Nagar police registered the case (C.R. No. 410 of 2011).
The trial court's verdict
The Additional Sessions Judge, City Civil and Sessions Court, Greater Bombay, convicted all four accused of murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC in Sessions Case No. 161 of 2012, by judgment dated 5 May 2016, and sentenced each to imprisonment for life, that is, for the remainder of his natural life. It also convicted accused Nos. 1 and 2, Rana and Satish Nafesing Dulgaj, under Sections 354, 509, 504 and 506(II) of the IPC, accused Nos. 3 and 4 under Section 323 of the IPC, and all four under Section 37(1) read with Section 135(1) of the Bombay Police Act for carrying weapons. The substantive sentences ran concurrently.
Accused No. 1 filed Criminal Appeal No. 439 of 2016, accused No. 3 filed No. 381 of 2016, and accused No. 4 filed No. 840 of 2016; the three were decided by a common judgment. Accused No. 2, Dulgaj, had filed Criminal Appeal No. 790 of 2016; he expired on 3 November 2025 and his appeal was disposed of by a separate order dated 28 August 2026, so it is not decided by this common judgment.
The common-intention question
The central question was whether accused Nos. 3 and 4 could be held guilty of murder with the aid of Section 34 of the IPC, which fastens vicarious liability where a criminal act is done in furtherance of the common intention of all. Their counsel argued that neither of them had inflicted a fatal blow: accused No. 3 carried a cricket stump and accused No. 4 a bamboo, and the only injury attributed to accused No. 4 was an abrasion on the complainant Avinash Solanki's thumb. At best, they said, the two intended only simple hurt — there was no evidence that they shared, or even knew of, an intention to commit murder.
The prosecution had never alleged that accused No. 3 or No. 4 stabbed either deceased. The trial court's own finding was that accused Nos. 1 and 2 had inflicted the fatal knife assaults, while accused Nos. 3 and 4, armed with wooden weapons, simultaneously assaulted Avinash and Benjamin.
Why Section 34 failed for two accused
The Court applied the settled rule that common intention presupposes a prior meeting of minds — a pre-arranged plan — and that the inference must be a necessary one deducible from the circumstances. It quoted Pandurang, Tukia, Bhilia v. State of Hyderabad (AIR 1955 SC 216): several persons can simultaneously attack a man, each with an intention to kill, and yet none have the common intention required by Section 34, because there was no prior meeting of minds to form a pre-arranged plan.
There was hardly any material to show a prior meeting of minds. The Court noted that common intention can arise on the spur of the moment and needs no long interval, but nothing on record showed pre-meditation or a shared plan to kill; the eyewitness accounts also differed on whether accused Nos. 3 and 4 had attacked the deceased at all. PW-1 said they attacked Benjamin and Avinash; PW-18 said they attacked Ruben, Keenan and Avinash; PW-17 said they assaulted Ruben and himself; PW-2 and PW-21 gave still other versions. On such variance, the Court held it unsafe to conclude that they had assaulted the deceased.
The prosecution had therefore failed to prove common intention, and the murder convictions of accused Nos. 3 and 4 could not stand. Their convictions under Section 323 of the IPC — for the assault on Avinash and Benjamin — were left undisturbed. The Court also sustained accused No. 1's convictions for murder and under Section 354 of the IPC, and recorded that no appellant had challenged the punishments under Sections 509, 506 and 504 of the IPC or under the Bombay Police Act.
The sentence: life, but not for life
The sentence question was distinct. The trial court had imposed imprisonment for life for the remainder of natural life. Counsel for the State fairly submitted that the Sessions Court had no power to impose a sentence for the remainder of natural life, though the High Court could impose an appropriate sentence. The Court agreed: following Naval Kishore v. State of Punjab (2026 SCC OnLine SC 2000), a trial court is competent to impose imprisonment for life, but not the special category sentence of remaining in prison for the rest of life, which in substance excludes the statutory power of remission.
The Court then fixed the sentence itself. It described the offence as a premeditated murder of two young men — Keenan, then 25, and Ruben, then 29 — who had gone to a restaurant to eat and watch a cricket match; accused No. 1 had molested their friend and stabbed Keenan with a lethal weapon, the injury being such that his intestine protruded and had to be held together with a towel. Against that, accused No. 1 was 25 at the time and not a habitual offender. The Court held that the ends of justice would be met by rigorous imprisonment for 20 years without any statutory remission, relying on Union of India v. V. Sriharan (2016) 7 SCC 1, and noted that the constitutional remedies under Articles 72 and 161 remain available, being untouchable by the Court.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students
Two doctrines do the work here. First, Section 34 is not a free-standing offence: it is a rule of evidence that makes each participant liable for an act done in furtherance of a common intention. Mere presence at the scene, or even simultaneous violence, does not prove a shared intention to kill. The prosecution must prove a meeting of minds, whether pre-arranged or formed on the spur of the moment, and where the eyewitnesses disagree about who attacked whom, the inference fails.
Second, the sentence turns on who may impose what. A trial court may sentence a murder convict to imprisonment for life, but the “remainder of natural life” formulation — which shuts out statutory remission — is a special category sentence that a Sessions Court cannot impose. The High Court, however, could substitute a fixed term beyond statutory remission, following Sriharan.
Note also the procedural point: accused No. 2, who stabbed Ruben, had filed his own appeal (Criminal Appeal No. 790 of 2016), but he died on 3 November 2025 and his appeal was disposed of by a separate order dated 28 August 2026 — so this common judgment decides only Appeals Nos. 439, 381 and 840 of 2016. The cause title alone does not reveal that history; it is in paragraph 150 of the judgment. A judgment decides only the appeals before it — check which appeals those are before assuming it covers every accused.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the High Court hold that accused Nos. 3 and 4 could not be convicted of murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC, even though they were present and armed during the attack?
- What distinction did the Court draw between imprisonment for life and imprisonment for the remainder of natural life, and why could the trial court not impose the latter?
- On what basis did the Court fix 20 years' rigorous imprisonment without statutory remission for accused No. 1, and what remedies did it say remain untouched?
