Case: Ajit Singh and Others Vs. State of Punjab

The three appellants had purchased about 16 acres of agricultural land from Joginder Kaur and Lakhwinder Kaur in the area of village Hasirewala. Mohinder Singh, P.W. 1 and Phuman Singh, P.W. 8, were in possession and instituted a suit foron the ground that the land was comprised in their tenancy. This suit was pending when this occurrence took place.2. Six persons were sent up by the Sultanpur Lodhi Police to stand their trial under Section 324, 325 and 326, read with Section 148 and 149, I.P.C. The learned Judicial Magistrate acquitted all the six accused. The State filed an appeal against three accused appellants before us, which, as we have already stated, was accepted by the High Court.3. In brief, the case of the prosecution was that on April 29, 1964 at about 9 a.m., the appellants started ploughing the land bought by them, by force. Jawand Singh, P.W. 6, tried to stoop them and told them to desist from ploughing the land pending the decision of the suit forThe accused, however, hurled abuses. In the meantime the three accused who have been acquitted came armed. The assault is described by P.W. 2, who seems to be an independent witness, thus : "Jit Singh picked up a Kirpan kept nearby and Amar Singh and Pritam Singh picked up Lathies. Jit Singh saying that the old bloody man was the source of all trouble and that he should be finished gave a Kirpan blow to Jawand Singh on his right leg. On receiving the injury he fell down. Mohinder Singh slipped forward to rescue him, whereupon Beer Singh gave him a Takwa blow on his left leg from behind. Mohan Singh gave a Kirpan blow to Jawand Singh on his left leg. Amar Singh and Pritam Singh gave one Lathi blow each to Jawand Singh on his left wrist joint as a result of which his wrist joint got fractured. Thereafter Amar Singh gave a dang blow to Harjinder Singh for his right leg. He also fell down. Ram Singh gave a Takwa blow to Jawand Singh on his right hand. We raised an alarm saving Mar Diyaand pushed the accused back with great difficulty". The prosecution case further was that Jawand Singh was placed on a cot and taken to his house and from his house he was taken to the hospital. Mohinder Singh was also taken to the hospital where his statement was taken down and this statement was treated as First Information Report on the basis of which investigation started. The Police went to the site of the occurrence but did not take into possession any blood from the land.

Reasoning: We are unable to agree with him in this respect. Not only has the doctor given opinion on this fact, but we are also not inclined to believe that Jawand Singh would let himself be injured in the way in which he was actually injured. There are fivewho support the prosecution story; three are injured persons and Amar Singh, P.W. 2 and Banta Singh, P.W. 3, seem to be quite independent. They were both working near about the place ofdid not examine the case of the prosecution as a whole, and, in our opinion, the High Court rightly criticised this method of dealing with the prosecution case. The High Court was perhaps forced also to discuss the reasons given by the learned Judicial Magistrate in respect of each point, but perhaps it would have been better to have dealt with the evidence as a whole.11. We have looked into the evidence and we find that there is no reason why we should not believe the evidence of Amar Singh, Banta Singh and the three injuredthere is no reason to disbelieve P.W. 2 and P.W. 3 when they sat that the accused stayed behind and destroyed the evidence by ploughing the land why the police came there was neither any blood not the foot prints of the bullocks, apparently because the accused had cleared the site the nextdo not see why the police should have bothered to take any blood from the house because if the prosecution case in false and the injuries wereblood would be present in the house in that eventualityHigh Court has distinguished the case of those accused persons because they had no motive whatsoever. But we are at present not concerned whether those person were guilty or not guilty. The present appellants had motive and were likely to have committed thesee no force in this point. It is not necessary that the injured witnesses should first go to the police station. The other witnesses were really interested in the dispute and they chose not to go to the police station. We cannot draw any adverse inference from their behaviour.