This judgment quashes the criminal proceedings only so far as the two appellants are concerned. It decides nothing about the liability of any other accused: the trial may proceed against any other co-accused in accordance with law. The Court's observation that the contractor could be prima facie responsible is expressly prima facie and subject to the evidence at trial. The judgment is dated 2 November 2026 and was uploaded on the Supreme Court website on 5 November 2026.
- Case
- Matin Shankarrao Bhosale & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra & Anr.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1198
- Bench
- J.B. Pardiwala; Manmohan
- Judgment by
- J.B. Pardiwala
- Case numbers
- Criminal Appeal No. 5171/2026; SLP(Crl.) No. 13889/2026; Diary No. 30924/2026
- Outcome
- Criminal Appeal No. 5171 of 2026 allowed: the Bombay High Court's order dated 25 February 2026 refusing to quash the proceedings is set aside, and the criminal proceedings arising from Chargesheet No. 15 of 2020 are quashed so far as the appellants are concerned. The trial may proceed against any other co-accused.
Appeal allowed; proceedings quashed for the two appellants
The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal of the president and the superintendent of an ashram school in Amravati district and quashed the criminal proceedings against them arising from the death of a 12-year-old pupil when a pillar collapsed on her inside the school.
A Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manmohan delivered the judgment on 2 November 2026. It was uploaded on the Supreme Court's website on 5 November 2026. The appeal arose from the Bombay High Court's order dated 25 February 2026 in Criminal Application No. 239 of 2021, by which the High Court had refused to quash the proceedings arising from First Information Report No. 39 of 2020 and Chargesheet No. 15 of 2020.
The Court held that the appellants should not be asked to face trial either for a rash or negligent act punishable under section 304A of the Indian Penal Code or under section 304. The proceedings are quashed so far as the appellants are concerned, and the trial may proceed against any other co-accused in accordance with law.
A pillar collapsed on a 12-year-old pupil
The deceased, Bharati Belsare, was 12 years old and studying in the 7th standard at the Prashnachinha Adivasi Ashram Shala, Mangrul Chawala, in Amravati district, where she lived in the hostel. On 15 February 2020, a pillar of cement and bricks inside the school collapsed on her and other girls of the ashram school. She died during medical treatment; the other girls were injured.
Her father, Sajilal Shyamlal Belsare, lodged the first information report on 19 February 2020 with the Mangrul Chawala police station. The report alleged that the director of the hostel and of the ashram school, Matin Bhosale, had deliberately made a substandard, unfinished construction of the pillar, and that he and the superintendent of the hostel had not taken precautions while constructing it, so that the pillar collapsed on his daughter through their carelessness.
The two appellants before the Supreme Court are the president and the superintendent of the school. The investigation ended in a chargesheet against them for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, punishable under section 304 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The appellants asked the High Court to quash the proceedings on the ground that even if the prosecution's case were accepted in full, no ingredient of culpable homicide was disclosed against them. The High Court declined. The complainant, though served with notice of the appeal, chose not to appear before the Supreme Court, either in person or through an advocate.
Did the appellants' acts cause the death?
The question before the Court was whether the appellants — the president and the superintendent of the school — could be prosecuted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, or at least for causing death by a rash or negligent act, on the footing that their failure to ensure the pillar was properly built caused the pupil's death.
The High Court had refused to quash the proceedings. It relied on the investigation papers: there was no dispute that the deceased studied at the school; the first information report showed the construction around the pillar used substandard material; forensic analysis of the mortar pieces showed cement content of 18.54% and 14.78%, with cement-sand-aggregate ratios of about 1:2:2 and 1:3.5:2, against a prescribed ratio of 1:2:4 or 1:3:6; and the spot panchnama stated that the pillar had not been built on a solid base of cement and iron.
The appellants' case in the Supreme Court was that, even accepting the prosecution's material, the ingredients of culpable homicide were not made out against them. The issue was therefore not whether the pillar was badly built — that was not in dispute — but whether the appellants' acts were the legally relevant cause of the death.
BANTHRY ANALYSISSection 304A needs a direct cause, and a very high degree of negligence
The Court set out the law governing section 304A of the Indian Penal Code, which punishes causing death by a rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide. The provision applies only where there is no intention to cause death and no knowledge that the act will in all probability cause death, and only to acts that are rash or negligent and are directly the cause of death.
Criminal negligence, the Court explained, is not the same as civil negligence. Simple lack of care is enough for civil liability, but criminal liability requires a very high degree of negligence — gross and culpable neglect, a failure to take a precaution that it was the imperative duty of the individual to take, with recklessness and indifference to the consequences. Mere negligence or rashness, without that degree of culpability, does not bring a case within section 304A.
The Court also restated the causation test. In a prosecution under section 304A, the act of the accused must be the causa causans — the proximate and efficient cause, the cause of all causes — and not merely a causa sine qua non, a but-for condition. The mere fact that an accused contravened a rule or regulation in doing an act that caused death does not establish that the death was the result of a rash or negligent act that was its proximate cause.
The chain of causation was broken
Applying those principles, the Court held that the appellants stand on a different footing from any other accused. In its view, they should not be asked to face trial either under section 304A or under section 304. At most, the person who could be said to be prima facie responsible for the death is the contractor — an observation the Court expressly made prima facie and subject to the evidence that may be led at trial, if the contractor is also one of the accused.
The Court explained the causation point directly: the act attributed to the appellants cannot be said to be the causa causans, but there was a cause interveniens, which broke the chain of causation, so as to make the act of the appellants, though a negligent one, not the immediate cause of the death.
The Court illustrated the principle with its earlier decision in Ambalal D. Bhatt v. State of Gujarat, where a manufacturer who gave one batch number to several lots of glucose saline was not liable under section 304A for deaths caused by lead nitrate in the saline, because the chief analyst's failure to test the solution properly and the production superintendent's failure to check the analysis intervened between the manufacturer's act and the deaths. As in that case, the question is not whether the accused's act was one of the causes, but whether it was the direct consequence — the proximate and efficient cause without the intervention of another's negligence.
The Court added a passage of unusual candour about the case itself. Dictating the order was, it said, a very painful experience, and the thought of a 12-year-old girl crushed beneath the pillar of her own school makes the heart bleed. But such thoughts should not allow a judge's mind to be boggled, it said, because otherwise justice cannot be done: however harsh one may find the law, the law remains the law and has got to be respected.
Quashed for the appellants; trial may continue for others
In the result, the appeal is allowed. The criminal proceedings arising from Chargesheet No. 15 of 2020 are quashed so far as the appellants are concerned. The trial may proceed further against any other co-accused, in accordance with law.
The judgment is marked reportable and bears the neutral citation 2026 INSC 1198. It was signed on 2 November 2026 and uploaded on the Supreme Court's website on 5 November 2026, when it first became publicly available.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students
This judgment is a model of the distinction between factual causation and legal causation. Factually, the appellants' omissions were part of the story: had the pillar been built properly, the child would not have died. Legally, that is not enough. Section 304A asks whether the accused's act was the direct, proximate cause — the causa causans — and an intervening cause can break the chain even where the accused was negligent.
Compare the two homicide provisions. Section 304 punishes culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which requires intention or knowledge of a kind the prosecution could not show here. Section 304A covers rash or negligent acts that cause death, but only where the negligence is of a very high degree and is the immediate cause. The Court's point is that neither provision is a general remedy for a tragedy: each has its own ingredients, and the prosecution must prove them.
Finally, note the Court's discipline in paragraph 61. The judges say plainly how painful the facts are, and then say plainly that the pain must not decide the case. That is the rule of law in one paragraph: sympathy for the victim's family is real, and it is not a substitute for the ingredients of an offence.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- The appellants were charged under section 304 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, but the Court also discussed section 304A. What is the difference between the two provisions, and why did the Court hold that neither could be sustained against these appellants?
- The Court held that the appellants' act was not the causa causans of the pupil's death because a cause interveniens broke the chain of causation. Using the Court's reasoning and the Ambalal Bhatt illustration, explain what an intervening cause must do to break that chain.
- The High Court had refused to quash the proceedings, relying on the forensic finding that the pillar's cement ratio was not maintained. Why did that finding not save the prosecution's case before the Supreme Court?
