Delhi court uses physics to shoot down ‘ricochet bullet’ defence, convicts man in 2013 shooting

A Delhi court has convicted Pradeep Singh in a 2013 shooting case after rejecting his defence that the bullet which seriously injured a man had first hit the cemented floor, ricocheted and accidentally struck the victim.

In a striking observation, Additional Sessions Judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi said the ricochet theory was a scientifically impossible afterthought, holding that the nature and depth of the bullet injury did not support the defence version.

The court convicted Singh under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code for attempt to murder and Section 27 of the Arms Act. He was taken into judicial custody after the verdict, with the court cancelling his bail and fixing September 18 for hearing him on the quantum of sentence.

The case relates to an incident on October 8, 2013, when Sunny alias Panna was shot in the abdomen in Mandi Village, New Delhi. The prosecution case was that Singh brought a firearm from his house and fired at Sunny.

The injured victim himself testified that Singh fired at him, causing the bullet to enter his stomach. He told the court that the bullet remained lodged near his backbone because doctors could not remove it. During his cross-examination, Sunny firmly rejected the suggestion that the bullet had first struck the ground before hitting him.

But the defence relied heavily on a later statement by complainant Pramod, who, during cross-examination conducted years after his examination-in-chief, agreed that the bullet had first hit the ground and then bounced back into Sunny.

The judge, however, found the defence theory inconsistent with the medical evidence.

The court noted that medical evidence showed the 7.65mm bullet entered Sunny’s abdomen about three centimetres below the navel, tore through his small intestine and major abdominal blood vessels, and travelled through the posterior abdominal wall before becoming lodged deep near the lumbar spine. The injury was certified as dangerous to life.

The judge then turned to basic physics to examine whether such an injury could have been caused by a ricocheting bullet.

Referring to the principle of conservation of kinetic energy and the equation Ek = ½mv², the court reasoned that a bullet striking a hard cemented surface would lose velocity and stability. It held that a ricocheted bullet could not plausibly retain the force required to penetrate the abdomen, tear through internal organs and blood vessels and finally lodge deep near the spine.

The judgment said a ricocheting bullet would, at best, have caused a superficial abrasion or shallow soft-tissue contusion, whereas the actual injury showed a deep and life-threatening trajectory.

The judge concluded that the medical evidence therefore supported the prosecution case that the shot had been fired directly at the victim.

The court also relied on ballistic evidence. Investigators had recovered a fired 7.65mm cartridge from the spot and later recovered an unlicensed country-made 7.65mm pistol from Singh’s bedroom. The forensic ballistic examination concluded that the cartridge recovered from the crime scene had been fired from the recovered pistol.

The court also took note of the injured victim’s direct testimony, describing the case as one where the ocular account, medical evidence and ballistic evidence were in harmony.

On the delayed cross-examination of complainant Pramod, the court noted that his examination-in-chief had been recorded in May 2015, while his cross-examination took place only in January 2019, a gap of more than three years and eight months. The court treated the later concession about the ricochet with suspicion.

Ultimately, Judge Jaggi held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that the defence version could not displace the combined force of the eyewitness, medical and ballistic evidence.

Singh was accordingly found guilty under Section 307 IPC and Section 27 of the Arms Act. The court ordered that he be taken into judicial custody, while the question of sentence was deferred to September 18.