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Grievous Bodily Harm by Firearms, etc
cases we have a new fact, a positive fact, independent of the act of the offender, which is super-added to the injury and produces effects which the injury, by itself, would not have produced. But the case would be otherwise if, for instance, the wound turns to gangrene, or septic poisoning or becomes grievous by its natural consequences, or from an operation rendered advisable by the act of the accused. The rationale of this is that a person who brought the victim into some new hazard of serious personal injury may fairly be held responsible if any extraneous circumstances, that were not intrinsically impossible, should convert that hazard into a certainty412 .
Grievous Bodily Harm by Firearms, etc.
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A grievous bodily harm is punishable more severely if it is committed with arms proper, or with a cutting or pointed instrument, or by means of any explosive, or by any burning or corrosive fluid or substance (Sect. 231).
This does not require any elaborate comment. The means used to cause the harm are sufficiently serious in themselves to require more energetic repression. Apart from the fact that these means are calculated and likely to cause extensive harm, the use of them discloses a greater degree of malice, greater determination and a more dangerous character on the part of the offender.
Arms proper are those defined in Section 64, namely, all fire-arms, all other weapons, instruments and utensils mainly intended for defensive or offensive purposes.
It is, of course, clear that the punishment prescribed by Section 321 applies where the bodily harm caused
412 It is to be clearly noted that the doctrine of supervening accidental causes applies only in regard to bodily harm. It does not apply in regard to the crime of wilful homicide. In other words, if the intention of the agent was specifically that of killing or of exposing the life of the victim to manifest jeopardy and death in fact ensues, the agent is guilty of wilful homicide without any legal extenuation even if death had ensued partly as a result of supervening accidental causes.
