Mayakaur Baldevsingh Sardar & Anr vs The State Of Maharashtra

2. Rajvinder Kaur (PW1) was the youngest daughter of Maya Kaur and Baldev Singh Sardar. In addition to Rajvinder Kaur the couple had another daughter Sulakshana, and two sons Ranprit Singh and Amrit Singh and the entire family was residing in a small township near Panvel City on the outskirts of Mumbai. While studying in school Rajvinder Kaur fell in love with Ravinder Singh and the relationship culminated in a secret marriage between the two, as Rajvinders family did not approve of the relationship on the premise that Ravinder Singh belonged to an inferior caste and was also financially weak. It appears that after Sulakshanas marriage, Baldev Singh and Maya Kaur decided that it was appropriate that Rajvinder Kaur too should be married off. A suitable boy was accordingly selected by them for her but before a final decision could be taken Rajvinder Kaur told the proposed bridegroom of her love affair with Ravinder Singh. He nevertheless still agreed to the marriage. Faced with this difficult situation, Rajvinder Kaur informed her parents that she was already married with Ravinder Singh. This information caused consternation in her family and faced with hostility she left home and shifted in with her husband and his family. She was, however, repeatedly threatened by her relatives including her parents that she would have to suffer the consequences of her misconduct. Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur, Rajvinders maternal aunt, also demanded the return of the ornaments that she had been wearing when she had left her parents home, but she told them that they could collect these articles from the police station ( in the presence of the police) as she had already lodged a complaint. On 30th May 1999 at about 8.30 p.m. Rajvinder Kaur was informed that her mother and maternal aunt had come to visit her. She accordingly invited them upstairs to the first floor and on their demand handed over the ornaments to her mother. Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur also told Rajvinder Kaur that her maternal uncle (Mama) Bhagwan Singh (accused No.3) had also come to visit her and was waiting downstairs. Lakhmindar Kaur, Rajvinders mother-in-law told Maya Kaur to call her brother upstairs. In the meantime, it appears Ravinder Singh went out on to the balcony to get his shirt and saw some persons armed with weapons in their hands hanging around suspiciously and apprehending mischief, he asked his brother Harvindar Singh to immediately call some of his friends. Harvindar Singh rushed downstairs in an attempt to do so but soon returned with a patch of blood on his shirt on the abdomen and fell in the prayer room. Rajvinder Kaur then saw accused No.4 Jagpal Singh, husband of Nirmal Kaur, accused No.5 Kawaljit Singh, cousin of Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur accused No.6 Bakhtavar Singh, maternal uncle of Maya Kaur, accused No.7 Kuldip Singh, a close relative of Maya Kaur, Baldev Singh and Bhagwan Singh climbing the stair case with weapons in their hands. Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur however left the place and went out of the gate. Rajvinder, sensing danger shouted for help but somebody entered the balcony and pushed her therefrom and she fell on the ground floor sustaining severe injuries. She also heard some voices speaking in Punjabi suggesting that she be killed and somebody replying that she was already dead. Rajvinder Kaur, grievously hurt, went crawling to the house of one Narula, a neighbour, and informed him of the assault on her family on which he called the police. The Police reached the site after a short time and found that Ravinder Singh, husband of Rajvinder Kaur, her brother-in-law Harvindar Singh, and her- in-laws Dilip Singh and Lakhwinder Kaur had all been killed. A formal FIR was thereupon registered at about 3.30 a.m. on 1st June 1999 at the Police Station, five kilometers distant, at the instance of PW7 Sub-Inspector Vikram Bhimrao Patil. On the completion of the investigation, the accused were charged as under:-

3. After an elaborate discussion the trial court sentenced Bhagwan Singh, Jagpal Singh, Kanwarjit Singh, Bakhtawar Singh, Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur guilty for the offences under Sections 302, 307 read with Section 120 B of the IPC and sentenced the first four to death and the other two to life imprisonment under Sections 302/120B and to lesser term of imprisonment for the other offences. Kuldip Singh and Baldev Singh were however acquitted.

4. As four of the accused had been awarded the death penalty, the trial Judge made a reference to the High Court under Section 366 of the Cr.P.C. The accused also filed appeals challenging their convictions and the matters were heard by a Division Bench of S.S. Parkar and J.N. Patil, JJ. Parkar, J. was of the opinion that a death sentence in the circumstances was not justified and that the involvement of Kawaljit Singh too had not been proved. He accordingly opined that the death sentence should not be confirmed and that Kawaljit Singh was liable to an acquittal. Patil,J. was, however, of the opinion that the death sentence imposed by the trial court and the conviction of Kawaljit Singh were justified on the facts and the evidence. On account of a difference of opinion on these matters amongst two Honble Judges, the matter was referred to a third Judge Palshikar,J. under Section 392 of the Cr.P.C. On a re-appreciation of the evidence Palshikar,J. ordered the acquittal of the accused under Sections 302/120B and 307/120B and 307/34 of the IPC and directed that Mayakaur Sardar, Nirmal Kaur Sardar,Bhagwan Singh Randhava, Jagpal Singh Toor, Kanwarjit Singh Pullar @ Rana Randhava and Bakhtawar Singh Randhava undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302/34 of the IPC. The murder reference was accordingly declined.

7. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record very carefully. Several facts are admitted by both sides. The relationship inter-se the parties stands admitted. It is also in evidence that Rajvinder Kaur had secretly married Ravinder Singh and it was only when an attempt had been made to marry her off to some other person that she had been forced to reveal her marriage and that this information had caused great alarm in her family and invited their wrath and that several threats had also been held out to her prior to the murders following which she had made a complaint to the police. It has also come in Rajvinders deposition that she had initially been hesitant to disclose the names of the assailants as she was mortally scared by what had happened to her husbands family and an attempt made on her life as well. It is in this background that her statement needs to be evaluated. The evidence of Dr. Alexander Martin Alphonse (PW13), a Psychiatrist attached to the MGM Hospital, Bombay also shows that Rajvinder had been examined by Doctor Yamini at about 1.00 a.m. on 31st May 1999 and that he had examined her after she had been referred to him by the Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Rajesh Kakvani and that she was in a state of tremendous shock and out of a normal state of mind, sad and tearful and uncommunicative and that she had refused to take any food and complained of lack of sleep on account of immense grief and suffering as a result of traumatic stress disorder. He further deposed that she had been in that condition for four or five days and had finally been discharged from hospital on the 29th June 1999. It is in these circumstances that the Sessions Judge as also the High Court have categorically found that she was both unwilling and unable to give her statement and it was only after she had recovered from her trauma and had also been provided with security by the police, that she had finally mustered courage and then spoken out. It is also evident from the record that Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur had made repeated efforts to get back the ornaments that Rajvinder Kaur had taken with her after she had shifted in with her husband and that she had, without hesitation, handed over the ornaments to them. It has also come in her statement that some efforts had been made (though with extreme reluctance on the part of her parents family) to normalize the relationship by having another marriage between her and Ravinder Singh in a Gurudwara but it appears that her parents, particularly her father, remained unrelenting with what they believed to be a marriage with a person who was financially weak and belonged to an inferior caste. Rajvinder thus held no rancour or ill-will against her family and the manner in which murders had been engineered must have come as the rudest of shocks to her.

14. We now come to the State appeal seeking a sentence of death for four of the assailants.

impose the death penalty on the accused. We note that the Additional Sessions Judge had rendered his judgment on 21st December 2001 awarding the death sentence to four of the accused. The Division Bench of Parkar and Patil, JJ. gave its divergent judgments on February 26, 2003. The third Honble Judge Palshikar,J. delivered his judgment on April 25, 2003 and the matter has been taken up by us four years thereafter. It has also come on record that the accused have served more than 8 years of their sentences as of now. We accordingly allow Criminal Appeal Nos. 1378-1380/2004 in so far as they relate to Kawaljit Singh alias Rana Darshan Singh Puller and order his acquittal. All other appeals are however dismissed.