Content Provider | Supreme Court of India |
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e-ISSN | 30484839 |
Language | English |
Access Restriction | NDLI |
Subject Keyword | criminal |
Content Type | Text |
Resource Type | Law Judgement |
Jurisdiction | India |
Case Type | Appeal |
Court | Supreme Court of India |
Disposal Nature | Appeal Dismissed |
Headnote | Indian Penal Code: Sections 120B, 302, 307, 324-High Court meticulously examining evidence- Recording its own finding on credibility of witnesses- Reasonable doubt as to circumstances under which victim received fatal shot-Held no interference with High Court order called for. Kashmiri Lal, Madan Lal, Babu Ram, Jagdish Singh Bedi and Prem Pal were tried by the Additional Sessions Judge on charges under sections 120(8), 302, 307 and 324 read with sections 147 and 149 I.P.C. on the ground that they entered into criminal conspiracy on 17.11.1972 to commit the murder to Ramesh Chand and others. The prosecution case was that Kasturi Lal and Madan Lal were brothers, that the three others Jagdish Singh Bedi, Prem Pal and Babu Ram were friends and associates of these brothers. Mool Chand and Jagdish Chand were brothers. Ramesh Chand, the deceased was the son of Jagdish Chand. Kashmiri Lal on the one hand and Mool Chand on the other hand were enemies and there had been complaints and counter-complaints and other litigations between these two groups. Kashmiri Lal was provided with a bodyguard Jaipal Singh, PW-17.Kiran Prabha, daughter of Kewal Kishore, another brother of Mool Chand was getting married on 17.11.72 and the marriage party had come from Delhi. Mool Chand, Amrit lal, Subhash Chand, Ramesh Chand and Agya Ram were accompanying the party. Ramesh Chand and Amrit Lal were heading the marriage procession. When the barat party reached the tonga stand near the residence of Dharamvir Singh Sehrawat, an Advocate, Prem Pal and Jagdish Singh Bedi came there on a motorcycle driven by Prem Pal and stopped the motorcycle on the roadside in front of the marriage procession. Simultaneously, an ambassador car in which Kashmiri Lal, Babu Ram and Madan Lal were sitting also stopped behind the motorcycle. Kashmiri Lal and Babu Ram were armed with guns while Jagdish Singh Bedi was armed with cudgel. The accused got down from the car and the motorcycle. Kashmiri Lal fired with his gun and Ramesh Chand got injured. Babu Ram fired simultaneously causing injury to Amrit Lal. Both Ramesh Chand and Amrit Lal fell down, and injury was caused to Subhash Chand and Mool Chand. Ramesh Chand died in the hospital on 18.11.1972 and Mool chand and Subhash Chand were treated at the District Hospital. The police party on receiving telephonic message from P.W.5 Balbir Singh reached the scene. They recovered the motorcycle with a bag hanging on its handle, a bag of cartridges and two empty cartridges lying on the ground. Investigation took place and the accused were arrested and sent for trial. At the trial, 20 witnesses were examined by the Prosecution. Mool Chand (PW.I) Subhash Chand (PW.4), Agya Ram (PW.6) and Jai Pal Singh (PW. 7) were examined as eye witnesses. They supported the prosecution and narrated the prosecution version. The accused set up their version on the incident in their statement. According to them Madan Lal was going in a rickshaw at 9.00 P.M. and when he reached near the house of the Advocate, Ramesh Chand abused him and fired a number of shots at him. Kashmiri Lal happened to reach there at that time. The deceased and others tried to assault him with a danda. He fired at them in the exercise of the right of private defence. The trial court accepted the prosecution evidence, rejected the defence version and recorded conviction. The accused appealed to the High Court, which set aside the findings of the Trial Court and acquitted the accused. The High Court was not prepared to believe that Madan Lal would have been accidentally hit by as many as two or three shots fired by two of his companions as it appears to be highly unnatural and improbable. It held that if the accused had conspired to commit the murder and all of them had proceeded to the place of occurrence from the house of Kashmiri Lal, it is difficult to understand why Kashmiri Lal and Babu Ram who were armed with gun did not immediately fire at Ramesh Chand who was admittedly in front of the marriage procession. The State aggrieved by the order of acquittal preferred three appeals, to this Court, and the complainant, Mool Chand filed an appeal by Special Leave. In the appeals it was contended : (1) The eye witness account of the incident was fully corroborated by the medical evidence on record and that their evidence had been discarded on the bald ground that they did not give satisfactory explanation of the fire arm injuries on accused Madan Lal. (2) The explanation of the fire-arm injuries of accused Madan Lal was contained even in the first information report which was promptly lodged by PW.1 Mool Chand. (3) The incident took place in a barat procession consisting of over 100 persons on account of melee and confusion, no one can be expected to give a graphic account of the encounter as well as the exact number of shots fired. (4) The three eye witnesses are natural witnesses, and they have given a consistent account which had received corroboration from other materials in evidence, and that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction. (5) The High Court proceeded on conjectures having lost sight of the normal human conduct especially when it found that the accused had come to the place of occurrence on a car and a motorcycle before the incident and four of them were arrested soon after the incident. On the question: Whether the approach of the High Court was wrong or the view taken by the High Court was unreasonable. |
Judge | Hon'ble Ms. Justice M. Fathima Beevi |
Neutral Citation | 1992 INSC 100 |
Petitioner | Mool Chand Etc. Etc. |
Respondent | Jagdish Singh Bedi And Ors. Etc. Etc. |
SCR | [1992] 2 S.C.R. 425 |
Judgement Date | 1992-03-31 |
Case Number | 688 |
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