Sunil Dattatraya Vaskar & Anr vs State Of Maharashtra

(a) of the Arms Act, convicting and sentencing the appellants to life imprisonment.

3. The Criminal Revision Application NO.316 of 1988 was filed by the original complainant against the same judgment of acquittal and both were taken up by the Bombay High Court together and disposed of by a common judgment. Two of the accused persons, namely, Dattu alias Dattatraya Kana Vaskar and Ganesh Govind Patil, accused Nos. 1 and 4, 3 respectively, died during the pendency of the appeal before the High Court and an order of abatement was recorded against them and the appeal was continued against Sunil Dattatraya Vaskar and Rohidas Dattatraya Vaskar, the accused Nos.2 and 3 who are the appellants before this Court.

4. According to the prosecution case, on 26.10.1986 the deceased Janu was standing in the courtyard of his house which is situated just opposite the house of the accused persons. The accused No.1 was the father of accused Nos. 2 and 3, the appellants herein, while the accused No.4 was a stranger to the family of the accused Nos. 1 to 3. According to the prosecution all the accused persons were standing in the gallery of their house opposite to the courtyard of the house of the deceased and at about 4 p.m. they started shooting from their fire-arms at the deceased. During the shooting, PW 3 Atmaram Patil, son 4 of the deceased, was standing near the foot- step of his house and called his father when as a result of the firing Janu sustained pellet injuries and fell. Atmaram ran to help him, but he also suffered pellet injuries in the firing by all the accused persons. The other witnesses who were present in the courtyard at that time also suffered pellet injuries. PW 2 Keshav, the complainant in this case, was also present in the courtyard when the incident occurred and he was also injured. He was lifted and taken to his house. The complainant thereafter proceeded to Panvel Police Station from Pargaon village and lodged the complaint in the Police Station and being himself injured he was sent to the hospital for treatment. Pursuant to the complaint made by PW 2, the case was registered as CR No.575 of 1986 under Section 302, 307/34 IPC and Section 25(1)(a) of the Arms Act.

7. The State of Maharashtra and the complainant filed the appeal and revision as mentioned hereinbefore and both were taken up for 6 hearing by the High Court together and disposed of by a common judgment.

9. The High Court also observed that the trial Judge had wrongly discarded the evidence of the eye-witnesses on the sole ground that they being related to the deceased were interested witnesses, while being family members, it was but natural that they should be on the spot and hence natural witnesses to the incident. In the aforesaid circumstances, the High Court allowed the appeal and the Revision filed by the State of Maharashtra and 8 the complainant and reversed the judgment of acquittal passed by the trial Judge and convicted the appellants herein of the charges framed against them and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

12. It was also submitted that a supplementary complaint had been filed by PW 2, Kishor Janu Patil, the son of the deceased, by which the motive for the alleged murder was sought to be modified. It was submitted that while in the complaint the motive for the shooting was shown to be an incident involving one Walia Mahadya, who was a servant of the accused No.1 Dattu Kane Vaskar, and is alleged to have entered the house of one Pandhari and had tried to outrage the modesty of his wife, in the supplementary complaint it was attempted to be established that in actual fact the said 10 Walia Mahadya had tried to outrage the modesty of a girl, Kamali (PW 12), who had gone to sleep in the said house and that the said matter had been taken up at a meeting of the Panchayat where the elder brother of PW 2 Atma Ram Patil, who was examined as PW 3, was one of the Panch Members. It was stated that since a decision had been given against Dattu Kanu Vaskar, he along with other accused, in order to extract revenge, participated in the incident which resulted in the death of the father of P.W.3 and the complainant and gunshot injuries being sustained by PW 3 Atma Ram Patil.

21. Having considered the submissions made by counsel for the respective parties and the evidence addressed during trial, we are of the view that the impugned judgment of the High Court does not warrant interference.

27. Having regard to the above, we see no reason to interfere with the judgment of the High Court and the Appeal is accordingly dismissed.