Prajeet Kumar Singh vs State Of Bihar

However, for the last several months, he had not paid the amount and owed Rs.4,000/- altogether as rent for the house and for food to the informant for which the informant was making demands regularly. Four-five days before the incident, when the informant made a demand, the accused said that he was going home to bring money and thereafter he went home. The day before the incident, the accused came back at 3.00 p.m. After having dinner, when the informant asked the accused for the dues, the accused told him that he should accompany him to his home where he would be paid his money. Thereafter, the informant and his wife went to sleep in their room which was on the third floor of the house. The accused also went to sleep in the adjoining room on the third floor. All the children of the informant were sleeping on the second floor. At night, the informant and his wife heard the noise of crying from the second floor and they suspected that the children had been quarrelling. Both of them came down and saw that the accused having picked up dab (dagger like weapon) from the house, had murdered their younger son Deepak Kumar. When the accused noticed the informant and his wife, he caused injury to them and their elder son Prakash Kumar, daughter Kiran Kumari and niece Pooja Kumari, using the same dab. During the course of investigation, the involvement of three more persons came to light to the investigating agency and chargesheet was submitted against the four persons, namely, accused No.1 (the appellant herein) Prajeet Kumar Singh, accused No.2 Ram Badai Singh, father of accused No.1 as well as Ajit Singh, brother of accused No.1 and Chandra Bhushan Pandey, relative of accused No.1. During the course of trial, two accused Ajit Singh and Chandra Bhushan Pandey remained absent and their cases were separated. The trial proceeded against two persons only, namely, the accused- appellant and his father.

3. The accused-appellant has been charged under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (for short "the IPC") for committing the murder of informant's son Deepak Kumar, aged about 16 years, daughter Kiran Kumari, aged about 15 years and niece Pooja Kumari, aged about 8 years, and further under Section 307, IPC for attempting to commit the murder of the informant Pawan Kumar Thakur (PW-3) and his wife Geeta Devi (PW-2). The Session Court found him guilty of the offence under Section 302, IPC and sentenced him to death penalty. He was also found guilty of the offence under Section 307, IPC. However, as the extreme penalty of death was imposed on the accused-appellant, the Session Court did not impose a separate sentence under Section 307, IPC. Father of the accused-appellant, Ram Badai Singh, has been charged for the offences under both the Sections read with Section 34, IPC. However, he was acquitted of the charges framed against him as the evidence of the witnesses that when the accused fled away from the place of incident after jumping from the top floor, they saw in the light the other accused also present beneath the house along with other persons, was not believed by the Session Court. The High Court has accepted the death reference and dismissed the appeal filed by the accused-appellant.

5. To prove the case against the accused-appellant, the prosecution examined Prakash Kumar (PW-1), son of the informant Pawan Kumar Thakur (PW-3), Geeta Devi (PW-2), wife of PW-3 and the informant Pawan Kumar Thakur himself (PW-3), who are the injured witnesses residing in the house where the incident took place in the night between 18th & 19th April, 1998 at about 2.30 a.m. The prosecution also examined three doctors, namely, Dr. Mahashray Singh (PW-5) who conducted the post-mortem of Deepak Kumar on 19th April, 1998, Dr. Madhusudan Shukla (PW-6) who did the autopsy on the dead bodies of Kiran Kumari and Pooja Kumari on 19th April, 1998 and Dr. Ganga Narayan Singh (PW-7) who examined PW-1, PW-2 and PW-3 in the afternoon of 19th April, 1998.

6. It has come in the evidence of Prakash Kumar (PW-1) that he was 19 years of age at the time of the incident and is the son of Pawan Kumar Thakur (PW-3). PW-1 studied in the same school with the accused-appellant and they were classmates. The accused used to pay frequent visits at the house of PW-1 and during this period came in close contact with the family members of PW-1. Three to four years prior to the occurrence, the accused requested the family members of PW-1 to allow him to stay with them and in return he would pay Rs.500/- for lodging & boarding and since then he had started living with them. Five to six months before the occurrence, the accused stopped making payment but assured that he would get the money from his home and pay it. In the afternoon of 18th April, 1998, Ram Badai Singh, the other accused charged for the offence and father of the accused-appellant, Ajit Singh, brother of the accused-appellant and Chandra Prakash Pandey, a relative of the accused-appellant came to the residence of PW-1, at about half past four and enquired about his father on which he said that his father had gone to the market. At that very time, two other persons Aseshar Pandey and Sukhaj Pandey came to the residence and they conveyed the message that his father was supposed to deposit the money in the bank and not spend it. During the conversation, the accused and his relatives were present and thereafter the accused left the residence with the relatives. After dinner, PW-1 went to sleep in his room on the second floor and his two sisters Kiran Kumari and Pooja Kumari and his younger brother Deepak Kumar were sleeping in another room adjacent to the said room. On the night intervening 18th and 19th April, 1998, he woke up to the sound of screaming, crying and knocking of the door. He saw the accused assaulting his younger brother Deepak Kumar and as a result thereof his brother got injured and fell down on the floor. When he tried to intervene, the accused gave him a blow on his head with a dabiya which resulted in a cut that extended below the left eye. Thereafter, he gave him a push. He saw his two younger sisters Pooja Kumari and Kiran Kumari crying in an injured condition. His father and mother were asleep on the 3rd floor and on hearing the commotion, they came down to the 2nd floor. The accused assaulted his father and mother with dabiya and thereafter fled towards the 3rd floor of the house. It is then said that he looked through the window and identified the father of the accused Ram Badai Singh, his brother Ajit Singh and relative Chandra Bhushan Pandey and two unknown persons who had come to his residence earlier during the day time and saw them fleeing towards the north direction towards the railway line. In the cross- examination, PW-1 admitted that during the period of last four years when the accused used to stay in his house the witness did not come across any enmity of the accused, nor did he get to know anything about his bad habits.

7. Another witness examined by the prosecution is PW-2 Geeta Devi, the wife of the informant. According to her, the occurrence took place at 2.30 in the midnight of 18th and 19th April, 1998. On 18th April, 1998, the accused came to the house and went to the 3rd floor of the house where his room was situated. The accused had been staying in their house for the past four years, he being the friend of her son PW-1. He used to pay Rs.500/- per month as monthly rent. Though he had not paid that amount for quite some time, a sum of Rs.4000/- was due from him. The accused had assured her husband that he would get the said amount from home. At 2.30 a.m., they woke up due to lot of noise and screaming by their children. They thought that their children were quarrelling among themselves so they descended from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor. They saw that accused Prajeet Kumar with his dabiya assaulted their younger son Deepak who had succumbed to his injuries. The accused had also assaulted Pooja Kumari, Kiran Kumari and Prakash Kumar as a result of which they were bleeding profusely and were running inside the room here and there to save themselves. Her husband tried to prevent the accused and she approached her children to save them. But the accused intervened and attacked her on her head and on the right side of her shoulder with the dabiya as a result of which she sustained injuries and tumbled on the floor. The accused also assaulted her husband PW-3 with the dabiya as a result of which her husband sustained a deep cut injury on the right side of his face from the eye to the lower portion of the cheek and a deep cut injury was caused on the left side of his neck. The accused assaulted her husband indiscriminately with the intention to kill him who tried to avoid the assault with the help of a cricket stump. Thereafter, the accused fled to the 3rd floor. This witness stated that she fell unconscious after that. In her cross-examination, she said that the accused used to visit her room to watch T.V. and had been staying at their house for four years prior to the occurrence. She had never seen the accused indulging in any ill-minded activities.

9. Deepak Kumar, Kiran Kumari and Pooja Kumari succumbed to the injuries sustained by them. The post mortem was conducted by PW-5 Dr. Mahashray Singh and PW-6 Dr. Madhusudan Shukla. All the three injured witnesses were examined by PW-7 Dr.Ganga Narayan Singh. On 19th April, 1998, PW-5 Dr. Mahashray Singh conducted post-mortem on the dead body of Deepak Kumar, aged about 16 years, and the following ante mortem injuries were found on the body of the deceased:

21. In view of the aforesaid facts, we are of the view that there would be failure of justice in case death sentence is not awarded in the present case. The case falls in the category of the rarest of the rare cases. The Session Court and the High Court were justified in imposing death sentence on the accused-appellant.

22. For the aforesaid reasons, the appeal is dismissed.