Ramanlal & Anr vs State Of Haryana

2. The prosecution case in a nutshell is that on 2nd July, 1998 at about 10 O’ clock in the morning Ved Pal and his brother Gopal, now deceased, were watering their fields in village Doongriwala, district Faridabad in the State of Haryana. At about 12.00 noon Jai Pal, son of Nihar Singh entered their field in which the two brothers had grown their paddy crop. Deceased-Gopal appears to have objected to Jai Pal’s trespass into the paddy crop to which objection Jai Pal gave an abusive reply insisting that he would pass through the paddy crop regardless of Gopal’s objection. While this altercation was going on between deceased-Gopal and Jai Pal, 10 to 12 persons appeared on the spot armed with lathis, pharsas and ballams. They included Har Chand, Digamber and Bhagat Singh sons of Jairam; Rajbir, Lal and Bhola sons of Har Chand; Jagdish son of Girraj; Rattan Lal son of Jagdish; Naresh and Rajkumar sons of Ramesh all Jats by caste and residents of village Doongriwala. They are alleged to have given a lalkara to eliminate Ved Pal and deceased Gopal and assaulted both of them causing several injuries including an injury on the head of the deceased-Gopal that felled him to the ground. The injured were removed to the hospital at Hodal for treatment where Ved Pal made a statement which was made before ASI Narain Singh that led to the registration of a case against the persons aforementioned for offences punishable under Sections 148, 149, 323 and 307 of the IPC. With Gopal succumbing to the injuries in the Escorts Hospital at Faridabad, the offence under Section 307 of the IPC was converted into one of murder punishable under Section 302 of the IPC. Investigation by the police led to the arrest of accused Har Chand, Digambar and Jagdish on 3rd July, 1998. Several recoveries from the accused persons are said to have been made in the course of investigation which culminated in filing of a charge-sheet against ten persons in all excluding Bhagat Singh son of Jai Ram who even though named in the FIR, was found innocent while Jai Pal being a juvenile was referred to the Juvenile Court at Faridabad. The net result was that nine out of those named in the FIR only were eventually committed to face the trial before the Additional Sessions Judge at Faridabad for offences under Sections 148, 323, 325 and 302 read with Section 149 of the IPC. At the trial, Bhagat Singh son of Jai Ram was also added as an accused under Section 319 of the Cr.P.C, taking the number of those accused to face the trial to ten in all.

3. In support of its case, the prosecution examined as many as ten witnesses. These included the first informant Ved Pal examined as PW-1; Prakash examined as PW-2; Kishan Singh examined as PW-3; Satbir Singh examined as PW-4 and Drs. HK Mishra, VR Gupta and SP Jayant examined as PWs 5, 6 and 10 respectively. The remaining witnesses happened to be police officials including the investigating officer. The accused did not lead any evidence in defence. In their statements recorded under Section 313 of the Cr.P.C., they alleged false implication. It was further alleged that Jai Prakash and Har Chand alone were present on the spot at the time of the incident and that the remaining nine accused persons had been falsely implicated. Their further case was that on the fateful day Jai Pal was watering his fields when deceased Gopal tried to commit sodomy upon him. Har Chand noticed this attempt of the deceased and objected to it, whereupon deceased Gopal inflicted a lathi blow upon the person of Har Chand. Har Chand, in exercise of the right of private defence and with a view to rescuing Jai Pal, inflicted a lathi blow on deceased Gopal, while Jai Pal caused injuries to Ved Pal in the incident.

4. The Trial Court appraised the evidence adduced by the prosecution and came to the conclusion that the depositions of PW1-Ved Pal and PW2-Prakash were completely reliable. The Trial Court rejected the contention urged on behalf of the accused persons that the delay in the lodging of the FIR was not satisfactorily explained or that the prosecution ought to suffer on account of its failure to explain the injuries sustained by the accused persons. The Trial Court also rejected the contention that there was no motive for the commission of the offence or that there was any contradiction between the medical and ocular evidence led in the case. The Trial Court on that reasoning sentenced all the ten accused persons arraigned before it to undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302 of the IPC and a fine of Rs.5,000/- each. In default of payment of fine, they were directed to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year each. They were also sentenced to under rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and a fine of Rs.1,000/- with a default sentence of three months each under Section 325 of the IPC. For the offences punishable under Sections 323 and 148 of the IPC the accused were sentenced to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- each. No default sentence in regard to those offences was, however, awarded.

5. Aggrieved by the conviction and sentence awarded to them, the appellants filed Criminal Appeal No.631 of 2000 before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, which was disposed of along with Criminal Revision No.345 of 2001 filed by Ved Pal-the first informant by a common judgment and order impugned in these appeals. The High Court upon a reappraisal of the evidence adduced at the trial came to the conclusion that the appeal filed by Digamber, Rajbir, Lala, Bhola, Jagdish and Raj Kapoor deserved to be allowed, while the same deserved dismissal qua Har Chand, Raman Lal, Naresh and Bhagat Singh. That is precisely the backdrop in which Har Chand, Raman Lal, Naresh and Bhagat Singh are before us in these appeals by special leave assailing their conviction and the sentence awarded to them.

18. In the result, we allow these appeals in part and to the following extent: