State
of U.P. Vs. Jagdeo & Ors [2002] Insc 527 (10 December 2002)
S. Rajendra
Babu & Arun Kumar. Arun Kumar, J.
J U D
G M E N T
These
appeals arise from a judgment of the High court dated 24th February, 1994 acquitting all the accused persons
of the charge of committing murder of Ram Lachhan and Rajendra. As a matter of
fact, ten persons, namely, Bhola, Lallan, Jagdeo, Sumer, Amardeo, Babban, Shrikishun, Jagdish,
Deep Chaudhary and Sheoji were charged for offences under Sections
302/149/148/147 IPC for the murder of the said two persons. Out of the ten
accused, two accused, namely, Jagdish and Deep Chaudhary were discharged under
Section 227 of the Criminal Procedure Code while the remaining eight were
tried. The trial court convicted all the accused persons. Accused Bhola, Lallan,
Jagdeo, Sumer, Amar Deo, Babban, Shrikishun and Sheoji were each
sentenced by the trial court to undergo imprisonment for life under Sections
302/147 IPC. They were further sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for
five years each under Section 307 read with Section 149 IPC. Accused Bhola, Lallan,
Amardep, Babban and Sheoji were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for
two years each under Section 148 IPC and accused Jagdeo, Sumer and Srikishun were sentenced to
undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year each under Section 147 IPC. All the
sentences of the accused persons were directed by the Sessions Court to run
concurrently.
According
to the prosecution case, the accused persons formed an unlawful assembly on
10th July, 1978 at about 9.00 p.m. at the tube well of P.W.1 Ramraj in village Amghat,
Police Station Bansdih Road with the common object of murdering family members
of Ramraj. Accused Bhola and Lallan were said to be armed with guns, accused Babban
and Sheoji were armed with revolvers while Amardeo had spear. Rest of the
accused had lathis with them. In furtherance of the common object of the
unlawful assembly, Ram Lachhan father of Ramraj P.W.1 and Rajendra son of P.W.4
(Sudama) were murdered. Sudama P.W.4 also received gun- shot injuries. Deceased
Ram Lachhan alongwith his four sons P.W.1 Ramraj, P.W.4 Sudama, Sudarshan and
Ram Nath was residing in a house in village Amghat. The house of Ram Lachhan
was surrounded on three sides by the houses of the accused persons.
The
house of accused Lallan and Jagdeo adjoins the court yard of the house of the
deceased Ram Lachhan towards the east. The cause of trouble between the accused
persons and the family of the victim is said to be that some of the accused
were extending their houses so as to encroach on the court yard of Ram Lachhan
deceased. Members of the family of Ram Lachhan were objecting to this. About 15
days before the incident, a quarrel had taken place between the familieis on
this score. As a result of this, the efforts of Lallan and Jagdeo to encroach
towards the house of the deceased could not fructify. Gangadhari , brother of
accused Bhola was arrested in some other matter. However, the accused had the
feeling that he had been arrested on account of the dispute between the two
families referred to above. At the time of arrest of Gangadhari, he and his
brother Bhola had threatened the family of the deceased ti take revenge.
On the
night of 10th July, 1978 at about 9.00 p.m., P.W.1 Ramraj and his brother Sudarshan
and Ram Nath were sleeping on the roof of the tube well about three furlongs
away from their house.
Deceased
Ram Lachhan and Rajendra alongwith P.W.4 Sudama father of Rajendra were also
lying on cots in the open space towards the east of the tube well room. There
were three electric bulbs fixed at the tube well and in the adjoining court
yard. The bulbs were of 100 watts strength and were lightened at the time of
incident. All the accused persons came armed as mentioned earlier. They asked
as to where P.W.1 Ramraj was. Bhola remarked that these persons had got his
brother arrested for which he would teach them a lesson.
Sudama
replied back that they had no hand in the arrest of Bhola's brother Gangadhari.
However, Bhola exhorted the other accused to kill the persons of victim's
family and see that none of them escaped. Thereupon, the accused started firing
with their fire arms injuring Rajendra, Sudama and Ram Lachhan. Hearing noise
of gun fire, P.W. 1 Ramraj and his two brothers silently creeped down the roof
of the tube well. The noise attracted P.W.2 Firangi from the neighbourhood who
came with lathi and torch. He saw the incident and raised an alarm. The accused
thereupon ran away towards the south-west corner. P.W. 1 Ramraj and P.W.2 Firangi
came near the injured. Ram Lachhan was already dead. Rajendra also died a few
moments later. Sudama was lying on the ground in a seriously injured condition.
P.W.1 prepared written report and signed the same. He arranged a cot for Sudama
and sent Sudama to Bansdih Road Police Station with Sudarshan. The written
report reached the police station at 10.15 p.m. Formal FIR was drawn on the
basis of the written report and was registered. The Investigating Officer tried
to record the statement of Sudama in which he succeeded only partly. Sudama was
thereafter sent to hospital in a jeep. The Investigating Officer came to the
spot at 11.00 p.m. and took the statement of Ramraj P.W.1. The dead bodies were
sent for post- mortem. The statement of P.W.2 Firangi was also recorded. The
Investigating Officer inspected the spot and prepared the site plan.
He
collected blood from the spot. He found pellets and bullets at the spot and
collected them. Memos were prepared with respect to all these. During the
course of investigation, the electric bulbs were found to be in working
condition. The accused persons were untraceable. Accused Bhola was arrested
next day while other accused could not be arrested immediately. Ultimately, all
the accused except Sheoji surrendered in court. They were charge sheeted. Sheoji
was declared as an absconder. During night at about 11.30 p.m., Sudama P.W.4
was examined by the Investigating Officer. Five injuries of serious nature were
found on his body. The injuries were fresh. The injury report is Ex. Ka.2. The
doctor gave the opinion that these injuries could have been caused on the same
night at about 9.00 p.m. According to the doctor, the condition of the injured
was precarious. The injured was sent to Varanasi for treatment. Doctor S.R. Sanyal
Medical Superintendent, District Hospital, Ballia P.W.9 performed the autopsy
on Rajendra and Ram Lachhan on 11th July, 1978. The post-mortem reports gave
details of injuries found on the dead bodies of Ram Lachhan and Rajendra. It is
a long list which need not be reproduced. The injuries were found sufficient to
cause death.
On
appreciation of the entire evidence including medical evidence and the evidence
of the eye-witnesses, the Sessions Court found that the case of the prosecution
stood established and the eight accused persons were fully responsible for
commission of the crime. The FIR had been promptly lodged and the contents of
the FIR tallied with the facts found in the course of the investigation.
There
could be no doubt about presence of the eye-witnesses at the time of
occurrence. The main eye-witnesses, that is, Ramraj P.W.1 and Sudama- P.W.4
belonged to the same family. Ram Lachhan deceased is the father of Ramraj
P.W.1, while Rajendra deceased is the son of Sudama P.W.4. Sudama himself
received gun shot injuries during the incident for which he had to be hospitalised
for a long time. The presence of the eye-witnesses was therefore fully
established. The evidence of the eye-witnesses is consistent and is natural.
Therefore, there is no reason to doubt the same. The defence raised flimsy
arguments in a bid to dislodge the prosecution case. It was argued :
1.
Investigation was faulty.
2. The
Incident is said to have taken placed at 9.00 p.m. in the night. There was no sufficient light at that time. Therefore the
eye-witnesses could not have seen the occurrence.
3.
Doubt has been thrown about the presence of the eye- witnesses.
The
Sessions Court in its well considered judgment found these arguments flimsy and
untenable and rejected the same. However, the High Court in a highly cursory
and cavalier fashion, totally ignoring the evidence of eye-witnesses, set aside
all the conviction merely on the ground that investigation was faulty pointing
out some minor discrepancies in the evidence.
We
fail to appreciate the manner in which the High Court has dealt with such a
serious case like the present one where at least eight accused persons formed
an unlawful assembly and armed with lithal weapons committed the murder of two
persons belonging to same family and seriously injured a third person. The
motive of the crime is also explained on the record which is land dispute
between the family of the victim and the accused persons. The houses of the
accused persons surrround the house of the victim's family. The accused persons
were gradually trying to extend their houses so as to encroach on the house and
court yard belonging to the victims' family to which the latter objected. This
was the cause of friction between the two groups which resulted in quarrels and
ultimately led to the ghastly crime.
There
are three eye-witnesses of the incident, that is, P.W.1 Ramraj son of the
deceased Ram Lachhan, P.W.2 Firangi and P.W.4 Sudama, who is an injured witness
and whose son Rajendra is the other deceased. The High Court doubted the
evidence of these eye-witnesses merely on the ground that they had motive in
supporting the prosecution case. Legally speaking, we are unable to accept this
reasoning. Most of the times eye-witnesses happen to be family members or close
associates because unless a crime is committed in a public place, strangers are
not likely to be present at the time of occurrence. Ultimately, eye-witnesses
have to be persons who have reason to be present on the scene of occurrence
because they happen either to be friends or family members of the victim. The
law is long settled that for the mere reason that an eye- witness can be said
to be an interested witness, his/her testimony need not be rejected. For the
interest which an eye-witness may have, the court can while considering his or
her evidence exercise caution and give a reasonable discount, if required. But
this surely cannot be reason to ignore the evidence of eye-witnesses. The High
Court was clearly in error in not considering the evidence of eye-witnesses at
all in the present case for the reason that they were interested witnesses. As
seen earlier, one of the eye-witnesses in an injured person who received
injuries in the incident itself. He was rather seriously injured. If he was not
present at the time of occurrence, wherefrom he received the injuries, would be
an obvious question. In fact, P.W.4 is also the father of the deceased Rajendra.
It is common in villages that male members of a family sleep together in the
open during summer season. Sleeping near the tube-well is understandable
because that would lend some coolness to the atmosphere. The High Court totally
ignored the other aspect of the evidence of the eye-witnesses. That is, the
evidence was consistent and the version of the witnesses tallied with each
other. In our view, there was no reason to discard the evidence of the
eye-witnesses. This evidence is clinching and it clearly implicates the accused
persons. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the evidence of at least
P.W.1 and P.W.4 and that is sufficient to convict the accused persons.
Coming
to the aspect of the investigation being allegedly faulty, we would like to say
that we do not agree with the view taken by the High Court. We would rather
like to say that assuming the investigation was faulty, for that reason alone
the accused persons cannot be let off or acquitted. For the fault of the
prosecution, the perpetrators of such a ghastly crime cannot be allowed to go scot
free. All the accused persons were armed with deadly weapons and they attacked
the members of the victims' family who were totally unarmed and were sleeping
at night in the open. The High Court has expressed a doubt about the FIR being
lodged at the time alleged by the prosecution and the manner in which it is so
stated by the prosecution. The question however is: is it sufficient to acquit
all the persons? The trial court had discussed all the elements leading to the
brutal murder in this case and found them against the accused persons.
Unfortunately, the High Court remained on the periphery and never attempted to
grapple with the substance of the evidence on record. This peripheral approach
of the High Court led to the impugned judgment of acquittal being passed. In
the presence of such a strong evidence on record implicating the accused
persons, things like alleged improper recording of time of lodging of FIR are
not sufficient to dislodge the verdict of convictions passed by the Sessions
Court. In our considered view the evidence of the eye- witnesses in the present
case completely proves the prosecution case. The doubt thrown by the High Court
on the presence of the eye-witnesses at the time of occurrence is totally
unacceptable. The impugned judgment of the High Court whereby all the accused
persons have been acquitted is hereby set aside . These appeals are allowed and
the judgment of the Sessions Court is hereby restored.
The
accused persons shall be taken into custody to serve the remaining sentence as
imposed on each of them by the Sessions Court.
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