The accused appellant has preferred this appeal u/S. 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure against the judgment and order dated 15/4/2000 passed by the Special/Sessions Judge, Shivpuri (M.P.) in SST No. 76/99 convicting him u/S. 302 I.P.C. and Sec. 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), Act, 1989 and sentencing him to suffer life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 5,000/- and in default thereof to further undergo two years' rigorous imprisonment.Briefly stated the prosecution case is that Govind (deceased) who was a member of the SC & ST Community on 14/8/1999 was working in the agricultural field alongwith Gebu (PW-2), Kishori (PW-1)) and Chhute (PW-3) when at about 3 p.m. the appellant who was owner and had given his field to Gebu under crop sharing came to the spot and expressed his annoyance at the late arrival of the deceased Govind who had come at around 9 a.m. in place of the normal starting time of 8 a.m. Criminal Appeal No. 435/2000 2 for labourers.The appellant hurled abuses at the deceased, who objected to it whereafter the appellant who was carrying a gun fired at the deceased who died on the spot.Kishori (PW-1) reported the incident to the police station Karera, district Shivpuri vide FIR Ex.P/1 which was written by Ashok Kumar Bharadwaj (PW-9), SHO of the concerned police station.The Judicial Magistrate of the concerning area was informed u/S. 157 Cr.P.C. whereafter the investigation was set into motion, conducted by SDO (P) T.K.Vidyarthi (PW-8).The Investigating Officer reached the spot where the dead body of Govind was lying.Panchnama of the dead-body was prepared vide Ex.The memo, requisitioning the witnesses to identify the dead-body was issued.Spot- map vide Ex.P/3 was prepared.Plain and blood stained soil were seized vide Ex.Statements u/S. 161 Cr.P.C. were recorded of witnesses Kishori, Gebu, Chhute, Devilal, Pistabai, Hailal, Mugar Singh and Prakash.The clothes worn by the deceased were received in a sealed condition from the Primary Health Centre Karera which were sent for chemical examination to FSL, Gwalior report of which was received vide Ex.P/9 opining the presence of blood on the clothes of deceased.The postmortem report (Ex.P/4) discloses various pellet injuries on the body out of which Injury No.3 sustained on the side of abdomen was found to be sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.The prosecution in all examined 9 witnesses namely, Kishori (PW-1), Gebu (PW-2), Chhute (PW-3), Omkarlal (PW-4), Murli Singh (PW-5), Dr. N.S.Chauhan (PW-6), Devlal (PW-7), T.K.Vidyarthi (PW-8) and Ashok Kumar Bhardwaj (PW-9) among whom, Kishori (PW-1), Gebu (PW-2) and Chhute (PW-3) are eye-witnesses who are unanimous in Criminal Appeal No. 435/2000 3 their revelation that when the appellant had come to the field to inspect the work being done by the labourers he found one of them i.e., deceased Govind missing.The appellant went back home.(Delivered on 10th day of November,2017) Per Sheel Nagu, J.Later the deceased Govind arrived at 9 a.m. and started working alongwith others.At 3 p.m., on the same day the appellant came again and expressed his annoyance at the late coming of the deceased to work.The appellant abused the deceased who objected to the same whereafter the appellant is said to have fired at the deceased who sustained pellet injuries on three different parts of the body, i.e. left forearm, left thumb, and forefinger and the third injury was found on the lower part of the back portion of the abdomen.The third injury caused fracture of left ilium and left ulna bone.The defence of the appellant was that of complete denial and of false implication.In his statement u/S. 313 Cr.P.C., the appellant raised plea of not being present at the scene of crime and further alleged false implication based on some earlier financial transactions between the appellant on one side and Gebu and Chhute on other.DW-1 Mahesh Kumar was produced in support of the defence.Believing the prosecution case and evidence, the learned trial court convicted and sentenced the accused as stated earlier and aggrieved thereby the appellant has preferred the instant appeal.We have heard Shri Surendra Singh, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Shri T.C.Bansal, Advocate for the accused-appellant and Shri Girdhari Singh Chauhan, learned Public Prosecutor for the State and also perused the record of the trial court.On perusal of the record, ocular evidence in shape of eye- witnesses Kishori (PW-1), Gebu (PW-2) and Chhute (PW-3) elicits that when the appellant had come to the field to inspect the work being done by the labourers he found one of them i.e., deceased Govind missing.The appellant went back home.Later, the deceased Govind arrived at 9 a.m. and started working alongwith others.At 3 p.m., on the same day the appellant returned to the spot and expressed his annoyance at the Criminal Appeal No. 435/2000 4 late coming of the deceased to work.The appellant abused the deceased who objected to the same whereafter the appellant fired at the deceased who sustained pellet injuries on three different parts of the body, i.e., left forearm, left thumb, and forefinger and the third injury was found on the lower part of the back portion of the abdomen.The third injury caused fracture of left ilium and left ulna bone, which ultimately resulted in death of Govind.Thus, the ocular evidence in shape of testimony of PW-1, PW-2 and PW-3 is duly corroborated by the medical evidence of Dr. N.S.Chauhan (PW-6).

Cited provisions: Section 302 in The Indian Penal Code; Section 300 in The Indian Penal Code; Section 304 in The Indian Penal Code