(a) A twenty year old girl 'G' was coming back to home after attending college. A man 'M' held her, shut her mouth and dragged…

(a) M committed murder under Section 302 IPC. Holding, gagging and dragging G, then slitting her throat, shows intention/knowledge of death; 302 prescribes death or life imprisonment with fine. The later sexual act is not rape under Sections 375/376 IPC, because rape requires sexual intercourse with a living woman without consent or under vitiating circumstances; a dead woman cannot consent or be threatened. Section 376, which prescribes punishment for rape, is therefore inapplicable; the death preceding the sexual act breaks the statutory chain for rape. In Rangaraju v. State of Karnataka (2023), the Supreme Court held post-mortem sexual intercourse with a woman’s dead body is not rape but may be an unnatural offence under Section 377 IPC, punishable with life or up to ten years and fine. Section 297 IPC is not automatic: it requires intention or knowledge that the act would wound religious feelings or insult religion, which these facts do not establish. Thus M is liable for murder and, if proved, unnatural offence; 297 only if the required mens rea is shown.

(b) Negligence is a tort based on failure to take reasonable care. Its essentials are: first, a legal duty of care, as in Donoghue v. Stevenson, where the manufacturer owed a duty to the ultimate consumer; second, breach of that duty, measured by the reasonable man standard in Blyth v. Birmingham Waterworks Co.; third, causation, where the breach must be both causa sine qua non and proximate cause; and fourth, actual damage. The chain of causation must remain intact: the breach must be a direct, unbroken link to the harm. A novus actus interveniens—an independent, unforeseeable act of a third party, the plaintiff, or nature—can break the chain and defeat liability. In Overseas Tankship (UK) Pty Ltd v. Morts Dock & Engineering Co. (Wagon Mound No. 1), the House of Lords limited liability to reasonably foreseeable damage, thereby preserving the causal chain. In Ratanlal Dhirajlal v. State of U.P., the court examined whether intervening conduct broke the causal link; where the breach directly produced the injury and no independent act intervened, liability followed. In Indian law, the same principle appears in criminal negligence under Section 304A IPC, where the negligent act must be the direct cause of death.

(c) Section 2(a) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, defines "atrocity" as an offence under that Act or the IPC committed against a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe with intention to humiliate, intimidate, insult, deprive of rights, destroy property, compel indecent life, force service, or demean caste/tribal identity. Section 3(1) enumerates acts such as voluntarily causing hurt, using criminal force, assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty, insulting or intimidating on caste grounds, obstructing access to public places or water sources, destroying property, forcing noxious substances, beggary or abject labour, and forcing service against will; the 2015 Amendment expanded these, while dedicating women as devadasis was already in the 1989 Act. Section 3(2), as substituted in 2015, deems atrocity where a person fabricates false evidence or document to cause punishment, files a false suit or gives false information, commits caste-based insult, intimidation or abuse, promotes enmity between caste groups, or commits an offence specified in the Schedule. The 2015 Amendment also replaced the earlier Section 3(2) test of IPC offences punishable with ten years or more with the present enumerated categories. In Khurshid Alam v. State of U.P., the Supreme Court held that the nexus with caste or tribal identity must be established; the victim’s SC/ST status alone is insufficient. These provisions protect life, dignity and constitutional equality under Articles 14, 15 and 17.