Section 323 - Punishment for Voluntarily Causing Hurt

Is IPC 323 a cognizable offense or a non-cognizable offense?

Section 323 IPC is a section of punishment for section 321 and the offense is a non-cognizable offense where police officers cannot arrest without a warrant. 

How to file/defend your case for IPC 323 offense?

An experienced criminal lawyer can aid in filing and defending a case of 323 offense. One can defend if able to prove that the hurt was not voluntary. 

Is IPC 323 a bailable or non-bailable offense?

IPC 323 is a bailable offense where you get bail as a matter of right and it is the duty of the police officer to give all the details of applying for the bail. 

Judgments on Section 323

In the case of Daveed Manas Vs State of Kerala court held that the accused had no knowledge or intention of causing an injury that results in the death of the deceased. Hence the charges of 304 (ii) were altered and convicted under IPC 323.

In this case, the accused threw a stone on the deceased and it hit him in the abdomen. This caused hospitalization and the doctor at the government hospital advice the deceased to undergo an operation to heal the internal injury to the abdomen. Moreover, the stone was not of a dangerous size to cause a serious injury. However the deceased moved to a private nursing home and there the deceased died as a doctor of the nursing home had a visiting timing of 8 am whereas the deceased died at 7 am. 

Thus after looking into the details of the circumstances and the finding of the post-mortem report the court came to the conclusion that mere hit of a simple stone did not cause death but the not heeding the advice of the doctor for the operation and line of treatment caused the death of the deceased. Hence, the accused was not guilty of culpable homicide. 

In another case of Ruchi Agarwal Vs Amit Kumar Agarwal and others, where the court allowed the case where the accused was charged with section 323 and 506 which is compoundable under section 320 of CrPC and IPC Section 498A and section 3 and 4 of The Dowry Prohibition Act which is non-compoundable in nature. The wife and accused husband agreed to do a compromise under the matrimonial law with certain terms and conditions. The wife agreed to withdraw all the criminal and civil proceedings once her dowry is returned and divorce is obtained. The accused agreed to give divorce with consent, however, the wife did not drop the criminal case against the accused husband, and the accused husband had to file an appeal to quash the criminal proceedings and with the given nature of the case and to avoid the abuse of the criminal proceedings the court quashed the criminal charges against the accused.