In the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh ...... R.S.A. No.1606 of 2008 ..... Date of decision:28.5.2008 Resham Singh and another .....Appellants v. Manjit Kaur and others .....Respondents .... Present: Mr. Sarbjit Singh, Advocate for the appellants. ..... S.S. Saron, J. (Oral) This appeal has been filed against the judgment and decree dated 28.3.2008 passed by the learned Additional District Judge, Amritsar whereby the appeal of the defendants-appellants against the judgment and decree dated 4.8.2006 passed by the learned trial Court has been dismissed. The plaintiff-respondent Manjit Kaur filed a suit claiming damages to the extent of Rs.5 Lacs on account of murder of her husband Jarnail Singh son of Shingara Singh on 27.9.1995. It was alleged that the plaintiff as also the defendants were resident of Village Rai, Tehsil Ajnala, District Amritsar. The defendants had trespassed into the agricultural fields of Jarnail Singh (since deceased) husband of the plaintiff. The trespassing by the defendants was objected by Jarnail Singh and due to this reason the defendants nursed a grudge against him (Jarnail Singh). The land of one Nirmal Singh adjoined the land of Jarnail Singh and others and he had occasionally been using the passage through the land of Jarnail Singh and thereby damaging his land. On 27.9.1995, Jarnail Singh and Mohinder R.S.A. No.1606 of 2008 [2] Singh asked the defendants not to use the land of Jarnail Singh as a passage as it damaged his crops. On this account Nirmal Singh and Jagtar Singh felt annoyed and an altercation occurred. At about 8.00 p.m. on the same day i.e. 27.9.1995 Jarnail Singh, Balwinder Singh and Mohinder Singh were sitting in the house of Jarnail Singh and electric bulb was on. While sitting they heard noise of some `Lalkaras'. All the three had opened the door and they found Balkar Singh (defendant No.1) carrying `Gandasi', Resham Singh (defendant No.2) carrying `Kirpan', Ajit Singh (defendant No.3) carrying `Dang', Nirmal Singh (defendant No.4) carrying `Kirpan', Jagtar Singh (defendant No.5) carrying `Gandasi', Sukhdev Singh (defendant No.6) carrying a spear and Joginder Singh (defendant No.7) carrying `Gandasi'. They caused injuries to Jarnail Singh who later succumbed to his injuries. The plaintiff filed the suit claiming damages to the extent of Rs.5 Lacs. Defendants No.1 to 4, 6 and 7 contested the suit and filed a joint written Statement. They admitted that the plaintiff and the defendants are of the same village but they denied the material version as was pleaded by the plaintiff. It was submitted that they had not caused any injury to Jarnail Singh in the alleged occurrence dated 27.9.1995. They had never murdered Jarnail Singh. The learned trial Court after considering the evidence and material on record held that the defendants caused the death of Jarnail Singh on 27.9.1995 by their wrongful and neglect or default. It was also held that the plaintiff, who is the wife and legal heir of deceased Jarnail Singh was entitled to recover a sum of Rs.2,40,000/-. The defendants-appellants aggrieved against the judgment and decree of the trial Court filed an appeal before the District Judge, Amritsar which was entrusted to the Additional R.S.A. No.1606 of 2008 [3] District Judge. The learned Additional District Judge, Amritsar, to whom the appeal was assigned, vide her judgment and decree dated 28.3.2008 observed that the appellants Nirmal Singh and Resham Singh had been convicted along with other four accused for the offences under Sections 302, 326, 324, 323, 148 and 149 IPC in a criminal case arising out of FIR No.201 dated 28.9.1995 by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Amritsar vide his judgment dated 6.11.1998. The conviction passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Amritsar has been upheld by this Court. The judgment in the criminal case shows that the appellants along with other co- accused had caused injuries on the person of Jarnail Singh and had also caused injuries to other relatives of Jarnail Singh. The testimony of PW-1 Dr. Gurmanjit Rai was relied who stated that 8 injuries were caused on the person of Jarnail Singh and he succumbed to his injuries. Deceased Jarnail Singh was 45 years of age at the time of his death and accordingly, compensation of the amount of Rs.2,40,000/- along with interest @ 6% per annum awarded by the learned trial Court was upheld by the learned lower appellate Court. Leaned counsel for the appellants has contended that the learned Courts below have failed to correctly appreciate the facts and circumstances of the case. It is submitted that Manjit Kaur appeared in the witness box as PW-2 and her son Sahib Singh was also examined as PW-3. It is submitted that in the cross-examination of Manjit Kaur (PW-2) and Sahib Singh (PW-3) they admitted that deceased was not owning any agricultural land in the village. They, however, stated that he was cultivating land on `Batai'. They failed even to give the name of the landlord of such land. It is also submitted that Jamabandi (Ex.P.3) also R.S.A. No.1606 of 2008 [4] shows that the deceased Jarnail Singh was not cultivating the land. Therefore, it is submitted that the entire occurrence is false as Jarnail Singh was not owning any land. It may be noticed that this aspect was taken into consideration for determining the income of the deceased and it was observed that Jarnail Singh (deceased) would be earning at least Rs.3,000/- per month if he was working as a labourer and in this manner he must be spending about 2/3rd of the income upon the dependents. The fact that the occurrence had taken place in which the defendants-appellants also stood convicted, it cannot be said that they were not liable for the compensation that has been awarded. The questions of law as formulated by the appellants in terms of Section 100 (3) CPC in para 13 of the memo of appeal are more in the nature of issues between the parties rather than the questions of law. In the circumstances, there is no merit in this appeal and the same is accordingly dismissed. May 28, 2008. (S.S. Saron) Judge *hsp* NOTE: Whether to be referred to the Reporter or not:Yes/No