Rampal Singh vs State Of U.P

2. Necessary facts, eschewing unnecessary details, can be stated at the very outset.

3. According to the prosecution, one Jograj Singh and Chhatar Singh were uterine brothers. Anurag Singh, Rajesh Singh and Amar Singh were sons of Jograj Singh. Ram Kumar Singh (deceased) was the son of Rajesh Singh. Rampal Singh (the appellant) and Ram Saran Singh (DW1) are the grand sons of Chhatar Singh. Rampal Singh and the deceased both were serving in the Army as Lans Naik. Two months prior to the date of incident, the deceased had come to his village on leave from Agra where he was posted. He erected a Ladauri on his vacant land. After expiry of the term of leave, he went back to join his duty. Rampal Singh had also come on leave. He had broken the Ladauri constructed by the deceased and started throwing garbage on the vacant land. Five days prior to the date of occurrence, the deceased had again come to his village on leave. Upon expiry of the term of his leave on 13th February, 1978, he was returning to Agra on his duty. Meanwhile, Amar Singh, uncle of the deceased came to his house with another person of village Dhaniapur and they all were chatting. Rampal Singh, the appellant, also reached there. The deceased enquired from him about the reason for demolishing his Ladauri and throwing garbage on his land. Some altercation took place between them. They even grappled with each other. The deceased threw the appellant on the ground. Ram Saran also reached the spot and he, along with Amar Singh, separated the appellant and the deceased. Ram Saran, who was examined in the Court as DW1 also started talking to the deceased who was standing alongside a pillar on his verandah. The appellant went to his house and climbed on the roof of Muneshwar armed with a rifle and from there he asked his brother Ram Saran to keep away as he wanted to shoot the deceased. Consequently, the deceased remarked as to whether the appellant had the courage to shoot him. On this, the appellant shot at the deceased with his rifle and ran away. Ram Saran and others helped the injured and called a village compounder who filled the injury with dough (Aata). The deceased then was carried to Bewar and from there he was brought to Military Hospital in Fatehgarh where he got admitted at 9.00 p.m. on the same day.

4. In the hospital, he was examined by Major Dr. Laxmi Jhingaran, PW3, who prepared the medical report. She found the bullet wound in the right side in the abdomen of the deceased and prepared an injury report (Exhibit Ka-2). Upon inquiry, the deceased told her that the appellant had shot at him at 2.00 p.m. Resultantly, she prepared a report and sent it to the Station Officer, Kotwali Fatehgarh (Exhibit Ka-3) for taking necessary action. On receiving this information, Ram Sharwan Upadhyaya, PW4, SI of Kotwali Fatehgarh proceeded to the Military Hospital. He made inquiry from the deceased who told him that the appellant had fired at him with his rifle with the intention to kill him. In furtherance to this, PW4 made a report (Exhibit Ka-6) to the Station Officer giving result of his inquiry and asked him that a case under Section 307 of the Code needs to be registered. Upon this basis, the First Information Report (FIR) (Exhibit Ka-7) was prepared at 11.55 p.m. on that day by Constable Shiv Karan Singh who also registered the case as G.D. No.14 (Exhibit Ka-8).

5. On 13th February, 1978 itself, the deceased had made a dying declaration which was recorded by Lieutenant Colonel Basu (Exhibit Ka-4) wherein he stated that he had been shot at by the appellant with rifle at about 2.00 p.m. on 13th February 1978, when he was coming out of his house. Subsequently, on account of the said injury, the deceased developed infection and died on 17th February, 1978 at 7.00 a.m. An information was sent vide Exhibit Ka-5 to the Station Officer, Kotwali District Fatehgarh by Lieutenant Colonel Officer Commanding N. Basu to arrange for post mortem examination of the deceased in the district hospital. Upon receipt of the information, the body of the deceased was taken from the mortuary of the Military Hospital and sent for post mortem. Dr. A.K. Rastogi, PW2, conducted the post mortem on the body of the deceased and submitted his report vide Exhibit Ka-1. He had found the gun shot wound and was of the opinion that the deceased died due to shock and toxemia as a result of ante- mortem injuries.

6. Thereafter, the investigation of the case was entrusted to Shri Vedi Singh, Sub-Inspector Police Station Bewar, PW6. He recorded the statement of various witnesses, inspected the site with the help of other persons and prepared a site plan (Exhibit Ka-17). After receiving the post mortem report on 1st March, 1978, he further recorded the statement of other witnesses which, amongst others, included the wife of the deceased, Smt. Sneh Lata, PW1, and her father, Virendra Singh, PW5. On 25th July, 1978 the Investigating Officer made a request to the Military Unit at Delhi to hand over custody of the appellant, who had surrendered there on 3rd May, 1978. The Investigating Officer also obtained leave certificate of the appellant Exhibit Ka-19, which shows that the appellant had proceeded on 60 days leave on from 2nd January 1978 and reported on duty on 3rd May, 1978. The appellant was handed over to the Investigating Officer, who then produced him before the Magistrate and submitted the charge sheet (Exhibit Ka-20). Upon committal, charge under Section 302 of the Code was framed against the appellant for which he was tried and finally convicted, as afore-noticed, to suffer imprisonment for life.

28. This evidence, examined in its entirety, shows that without any pre- meditation, the appellant committed the offence. The same, however, was done with the intent to cause a bodily injury which could result in death of the deceased.

31. In view of the above discussion, we partially accept this appeal and alter the offence that the appellant has been held guilty of, from that under Section 302 of the Code to the one under Section 304 Part I of the Code. Having held that the accused is guilty of the offence under Section 304 Part I, we award a sentence of ten years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.10,000/-, in default to undergo simple imprisonment for one month. The judgment under appeal is modified in the above terms. The appeal is disposed of accordingly.

………...….…………......................J. (Swatanter Kumar) ………...….…………......................J. (Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla) New Delhi, July 24, 2012