Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 Date of decision: October 31, 2011 Gurnam Singh .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Punjab ....Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. PPS Duggal, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Gaurav Garg Dhuriwala, DAG, Punjab, for the State. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner has approached this Court through the present petition to impugn his conviction under Section 304- A/338/279 IPC. Upon conviction, the petitioner has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 1½ years and to a fine of `1000/-. The petitioner was further required to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 6 months in case of default of payment of fine. In addition, the petitioner has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months under Section 338 IPC and three months for his conviction under Section 279 IPC. As per the prosecution story, complainant-Gurpal Singh, resident of Village Raje Wala along with his other relatives went to Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -2- Village Thathar Kalan to attend the marriage of the daughter of his cousin Iqbal Singh. After attending the marriage, Gurpal Singh and his nephew Harkirat Singh were returning on one scooter, whereas Gurpal Singh’s nephew Jatinder Singh along with his mother Jarnail Kaur and daughter Harmit Kaur alias Cherri were riding on scooter No.PB-29-4100. Scooter driven by Jatinder singh was going ahead of the scooter driven by Gurpal Singh. At about 5.15 PM, when they reached in the area of village Ferozeshah, a four wheeler motor vehicle make-canter having registration No.PB04-2460 came to the scene at a high speed which being driven by petitioner-Gurnam Singh, who was identified later to be driver of the vehicle. The petitioner allegedly turned the vehicle rashly and negligently towards the right side of the road and hit the scooter driven by Jatinder Singh, who was proceeding on his left side. Jatinder Singh, his mother and daughter fell down from the scooter. Jatinder Singh received injuries on his head, right wrist and other parts of his body. Jarnail Kaur and Harmit Kaur also sustained injuries. The petitioner statedly ran away from the spot. Gurpal Singh shifted all the injured to Amar Hospital Ferozepur. Jatinder Singh was declared brought dead. His other relatives also arrived at Amar Hospital, Ferozepur. After leaving injured there, Gurpal Singh took the dead body of Jatinder Singh to his house. On the intervening night of 7/8.12.1997, ASI Harpal Singh of Police Station Ghall Khurd received wireless message from Police Station Sadar Ferozepur regarding the admission of injured Jarnail Kaur and Harmit Kaur, who went to the Hospital where both the injured were declared unfit to make the statement. None of the other Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -3- eye witnesses was present in the hospital. The other relatives had taken the body of Jatinder Singh to his native place as already noticed. ASI Harpal Singh then went to the Village Raje Wala, where complainant Gurpal Singh met him and recorded his statement leading to registration of the FIR under various Sections of IPC. The investigation was cnducted. Post mortem of the body was conducted and thereafter, challan under Section 279/337/338/304-A/427 IPC was presented against the petitioner. Prosecution examined various witnesses. While making statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C, the accused denied the entire incriminating circumstances appearing against him in the prosecution evidence and pleaded false implication. The trial Court found the petitioner guilty of the charge. As per the accused, PW Harkirat Singh was employed as Kanungo in his village. He was harassing the accused with demands of money at the time of harvesting of paddy and wheat crops as the petitioner, who has cultivated the land of his father. PW Harkirat Singh was brother of deceased Jatinder Singh and due to refusal of the petitioner to pay money to Harkirat Singh, he has been falsely implicated in the present case. The petitioner examined one witness in his support and thereafter, trial Court recorded the guilt against him. The appellate Court has upheld the finding and also the sentence. Accordingly, the petitioner has filed the present revision petition to impugn his conviction and sentence so ordered. Counsel for the petitioner has made two fold submissions before me. He would first contend that the petitioner was not named Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -4- in the FIR. According to the counsel, if the version of the prosecution accepted i.e. eye witnesses knew the petitioner or were acquainted to him they were bound to disclose the name of the petitioner in the FIR. Counsel, accordingly, contends that the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the case for the reason, which he has pleaded before the Court in defence. Counsel then contends that site plan, which was produced, does not give any indication of the place or position, where the complainant was driving the scooter while following the scooter driven by the deceased and this would show that this fact has been introduced later. The counsel pleads that the conviction of the petitioner was not proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. I have considered both the submissions made by counsel for the petitioner on the basis of evidence brought on record. No doubt, there is some delay in lodging the FIR in this case, but that delay, in my view is well, explained from the circumstances of the case. After the accident, the petitioner apparently left the vehicle and ran away from the place. First priority of the complainant was to evacuate the injured to the nearest hospital for medication attention. That of-course the complainant did. He took the injured to the Amar Hospital, where deceased Jatinder Singh was declared brought dead. The injured were in the Amar Hospital, when the police received intimation in regard to this accident. ASI Harpal Singh, who was investigating the case, had gone to the Hospital where the injured were found unfit to make a statement. In the meantime, the complainant had taken the deceased to his village upon being declared dead. ASI investigating the case under these Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -5- circumstances had to go proceed to the village of the deceased where the complainant recorded his statement leading to registration of the FIR. The circumstances in which the FIR came to be recorded on the basis of statement of eye witness, would fully explain the delay. Delay in the circumstances of the case would not fatal in any manner. The next submission made by the counsel is related to identification of the petitioner. No doubt the name of the petitioner is not disclosed in the FIR. That may be due to the fact that there was a death in the family and the complainant was mainly concerned about that aspect. The complainant was one, who had taken the deceased to his village and accordingly this FIR had been recorded by the Police after reaching the village of the deceased. The ability of the eye-witnesses to identify and recognize the accused was well tested by cross-examination of these witnesses. This is a case where two witnesses were injured and had survived. The examination of the witnesses including the complainant had disclosed that they knew the petitioner prior to this incident. One of the witnesses had statedly traveled in the vehicle driven by the petitioner and knew him well before the incident. They were not one who had lodged the FIR and this may explain the reason for not disclosing the name of the petitioner in the FIR. The petitioner had been well recognised and identified by the witnesses. During cross-examination, the defence could not bring out any substantial aspect, which would doubt the capacity of the eye witnesses to identify and recognize the petitioner as the driver of the impugned vehicle. The petitioner has not taken up the defence of Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -6- denial, but had pleaded his false implication. The reasons advanced by the petitioner to claim his false implication are rather far fetched. Simply because the petitioner had not paid some money on being asked by the relative of the complainant would not be a reason enough for the deceased or the complainant or even the eye- witnesses to make a false allegation against the petitioner. In my view, this defence is far fetched and advanced by the petitioner only to get out of the fact that he had caused the accident. The conviction is well supported by the evidence of the eye-witnesses, which I have perused and it is a cogent evidence. The submission that the rash and negligent act is required to be proved, may be so but the manner in which the witnesses have described the accident would clearly show that the petitioner had driven the vehicle negligently during the accident. As per the evidence, the petitioner suddenly turned his vehicle to wrong side and hit into scooter driven by the deceased, who was driving the scooter on the right side of the road. This would clearly indicate rashness or negligence on the part of the petitioner. It is not a case, where rashness or negligence is not proved by the prosecution from the manner of accident though the fact or the evidence that the deceased had driven this vehicle at high speed in itself may be vague term used while recording evidence. In this factual position, the submissions made by counsel for the petitioner by placing reliance on Ajaib Singh Vs. State of Punjab, 2000(2), RCR (Criminal) 737 Love Raj Vs. State of Punjab, 2001 (3) RCR (Criminal) 15 and Ishwar Singh Vs. State of Haryana, 2000(2) RCR (Criminal) 571 would be of no avail to Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -7- him. Love Raj's case (supra) was the case, where the accused person after causing death by rash and negligent manner had fled away from the place of accident. Identity of the accused was not established by the prosecution. Under these circumstances, the accused was held entitled to acquittal. Prosecution did not disclose as to how the investigating agency came to know the name of accused. In the present case, the eye-witnesses knew the accused prior to this incident and hence were in a position to identify and recognise him. The ratio of law laid down in Love Raj's case (supra), therefore would not apply to the facts of the present case. In Ajaib Singh's case (supra), the truck driver was acquitted on account of charge that the evidence showed that the accused was driving truck at high speed, but there was no evidence that he was driving rashly. There was no evidence of approximate speed of truck. There was no evidence regarding width of road, which if mentioned, would have gone to show that a particular speed may be rash. These considerations obviously would not arise in the present case. Here the manner of driving is well reflected in the evidence of the eye-witnesses. As per the evidence, the petitioner had turned his vehicle towards wrong side and caused this accident. Speed under these circumstances, is immaterial. Even if the petitioner was driving at low speed, he could be termed as rash and negligent in driving the vehicle from the manner of driving to move vehicle on wrong side and this causing the accident. Accordingly, the findings of this Court in Ajaib Singh's case (supra) would not apply to the facts in the present case. Crl. Revision No.2159 of 2004 -8- In Ishwar Singh's case (supra), this court has held that there should be evidence about the rash driving of the vehicle. No doubt, no driver of the vehicle can be presumed to be rash. Negligence or rashness of an accused must be exhibited, explained and proved. In this case, that situation is not available. In the present case, the manner of driving has been given in the evidence as already noticed, which would reflect the rash and negligent driving on the part of the petitioner. Accordingly, the judgments relied upon by the petitioner would not apply to the facts of the present case in any manner. There is no merit in the revision. However, considering the fact that the incident is of 1997 and that the petitioner was convicted for these offences on 4.7.2001. The appeal of the petitioner was also dismissed on 8.9.2004. Since that date, the petitioner is before this Court through the present revision petition. Considering the fact that this is an old episode, case for showing leniency in the sentence is made out. The sentence imposed upon the petitioner is, accordingly, reduced to one year. The criminal revision is otherwise dismissed. October 31, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) monika JUDGE