Case: Jagdish Vs. State of Haryana

The convictions of the appellant under section 302 IPC and for offence punishable under section 5 of the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as TADA) and consequential sentence of imprisonment for life and the fine of Rs.in default of payment of fine further rigorous imprisonment for five months for of fence under section 302 and rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven years together with a fine of Rs. 200/in default of payment of fine, further rigorous imprisonment for two months under section 5 of TADA passed in Sessions Trial No. 189/92 by the learned Additional Judge, Designated court, Karnal at Panipat have been impugned in this appeal by the convicted accused Jagdish.According to the prosecution case, at the instance ofRanbir Singh who died during the pendency of the trial and at the behest ofChaudhary Ram, the appellant Jagdish caused the murder of Pritam Lal Chopra on May 3, 1992 by firing at him from a pistol. The appellant was charged for the offence under section 302 IPC an d under section 5 of TADA and the said deceased accused Ranbir Singh and theChaudhary Ram were charged under Section 302 read with section 120B IPC. The accused Chaudhary Ram and the deceased Ranbir Singh were also charged for the offence under section 115 IPC.It is the prosecution case that the accused Chaudhary Ram had a very strained relation with his son Om Prakash PW 2. Om Prakash was residing in one portion in the house owned by Chaudhary Ram with his wife and child and in another portion his father Chaudhary Ram and two other brothers used to stay. Chaudhary Ram had filed a civil suit in Delhi against Om Prakash by alleging that Om Prakash in connivance with his wife andwanted to extract a sum of R s. 50, 00, 000/from him on account of the share of the property and they had also been threatening to kill Chaudhary Ram and his family members and also had been harassing them in various manner. Chaudhary Ram also gave a publication in Hindustan Times on May 7, 1991 to the effect that he had ousted his son Om Prakash and his wife Veena and his children from the family and they had no right to claim any share in the property of Chaudhary Ram. Chaudhary Ram also issued a notice on May 21, 1991 to Om Prakash asking him to vacate the said house.On December 14, 1991, there was an attempt on the life of he deceased Pritam Lal Chopra when the assailant fired at him in Karol Bagh in Delhi. It was allege that Chaudhary Ram led the s aid plot of murdering Pritam Lal Chopra. The Police, however, filed a final report by indicating that it could not be ascertained as to who had attempted to murder the said Pritam Lal in the said incident. On March, 13, 1991 PW 19 Shiv Lal came to Panipat to attend the auction of liquor vends for the yearThe deceased Pritam Lal Chopra and other liquor vend contractors had also attended the same and after aboutminutes of the departure of Pritam Lal Chopra, Shiv Lal had noticed that the accused Chaudhary Ram accompanied by the other two accused Ranbir Singh and Jagdish were present at the said place and Chaudhary Ram had told Ranbir Singh and Jagdish that Pritam Lal was hurdle in this way and he should be eliminated. PW 10 Prem Singla had celebrated the Mahurat ceremony of his liquor vend know as M/s Singla Salesat Gohana Road Panipat and in that connection, PW 1 Joginder Pal PW 2 Om Prakash and the other witness Vijay Kumar came to Panip at and the accused Chaudhary Ram had attended the said function. PW 3 Vijay Kumar also noticed accused Chaudhary Ram in the company of other two accused Ranbir Singh and Jagdish and Vijay Kumar hadRanbir Singh telling Jagdish t he murder of Pritam Lal Chopra must be committed on that day and he should not bother for the money which he would get from Chaudhary Ram. Chaudhary Ram had also told Jagdish that the said work must be done that day and he should not worry for money.At about 4.00 P.M. on May 3, 1992, when PW 1 Joginder Pal and PW 2 Om Prakash were present near the said liquor vend of M/s Singla Sales, they found that accused Jagdish took out a pistol from the right side pocket of his trouser and fired at Pritam Lal Chopra and on being hit Pritam Lal Chopra fell down. Joginder Pal and Om Prakash rushed to take care of Pritam Lal Chopra and in the meantime Jagdish fled away from the place of incident. Pritam Lal Chopra was taken to civil hospital Panipat by Joginder Pal and Om Prakash and on examination, Dr. R.K. Tandon declared him dead. The said doctor despatched a written ruqua Ex. PF to Police Station andSatbir Singh PW 21 rushed to the hospital and recorded the statement of Joginder Pal (Ext. PA) on the basis of which the FIR was registered PW 7 Dr. V.P. Gupta performed post mortem examination on the dead body of Pritam Lal on May 4, 1992 and in his report Ex. PE, the doctor noted that the death had taken place between 4 to 36 hours from the time of post mortem. The doctor also extracted the fired bullet (Ex. P4) from the dead body.The accused Jagdish was arrested on December 10, 1992 and on investigation in the presence of panch witness Naresh Kumar (PW 17) and others, the said Jagdish made a disclosure statement (Ex. PL) and on the basis of such disclosure statement, pistol (Ex. P5) as well as two cartridges were recovered underneath the earth near the culvert of Ganda Nala in H uda colony in Panipat. PW 4 Lal Chand also told the police that when he was sitting in the office of liquor contractor at old bus stand, Gohana, he had seen Chaudhary Ram along withJagdish and Chaudhary Ram told that he had cleared the way by getting Pritam Lal Chopra murdered. He also patted Jagdish for carrying out the job nicely and told Jagdish that the money had been kept with Ranbir Singh and he could take it from him. A fired cartridge was found by the Investigating officer from the place of incident and the same was seized being Ex. P4. PW 11 Dr. L.A. Kumar the Ballistic expert give a report that the cartridge fired from the pistol Ex. P.5 and the fired cartridge seized by the police officer had been fired from the same pistol namely, Ex. P.5.The learned Designated Judge did not accept the case of conspiracy hatched by Chaudhary Ram by indicating that the version given by the witnesses in support of such conspiracy to cause murder of Pritam Lal Chopra was not free from doubt and it was unlikely that Chaudhary Ram against whom an allegation of setting an assailant for murdering Pritam Lal Chopra had earlier been made, would tell Jagdish and Ranbir Singh at the hearing of other person s that Pritam Lal Chopra was to be murdered by Jagdish and he should pay for it. The learned Designated Judge having also indicated that if Joginder Pal and Om Prakash hadsuch conversation between Chaudhary Ram, Jagdish and Ranbir Singh , they would have immediately warned Pritam Lal Chopra and would have ensure that such incident would not take place. Therefore, the learned Designated Judge came to the finding that the case against Chaudhary Ram could not be held to have been established beyond reasonable time. But accepting the depositions ofnamely, PW 1 and PW 2 Joginder Pal and Om Prakash, the learned Designated Judge convicted the appellant Jagdish for the said offences under section 302 IPC and section 5 of TADA.Mr. Rajinder Sachher, the learned senior counsel appearing for the appellant, has submitted that admittedly there was strong enmity and bad feeling between Om Prakash and hisand the deceased who was a close relation of the wife of Om Prakash. It is, therefore, quite likely that Om Prakash, Joginder Pal Vijay Kumar and others were keen to implicate Chaudhary Ram and others by fabricating a false story when Pritam Lal Chopra was murdered by some unknown assailant. The prosecution fabricated a false story of hatching a conspiracy by Chaudhary Ram by engaging Ranbir Singh and Jagdish to execute the plot of murdering Pritam Lal. Such false allegation against Chaudhary Ram had not been believed by Designated Judge and Chaudhary Ram was, therefore, acquitted. Mr. Sachher has submitted that the murder of Pritam Lal Chopra by Jagdish was the outcome of the conspiracy hatched by Chaudhary Ram. If the main story of hatching such conspiracy cannot be accepted, the other part of the prosecution case, namely, in implementing such conspiracy, Jagdish had murdered Pritam Lal Chopra is not at all believable and such case must also fail.

Court's reasoning:
After giving our careful consideration to the facts and circumstances of the case and the evidences adduced through which we have been taken, it appears to us that the incident of murder had taken place at about 4.00 P.M. PW 1 and PW 2 immediately had removed the victim to the hospital where he was declared dead by the doctor who had examined the deceased and on the basis of ruqua sent by the doctor, the police came to the hospital and immediately on the arrival of the police statement of PW 1 forming the FIR was recorded. In the said FIR the name of the appellant Jagdish was clearly mentioned by indicating the name of his father and other particulars. There is nothing on record on the basis of which it can be reasonably held that such FIR was fabricated. There is no good reason to discard the evidences of the eye witnesses of PW 1 and PW 2 only because the covillagers of Jagdish were not known to them. It also appears to us that a recovery of the weapon of assault on the basis of disclosure statement made by the accused had been established convincingly and the report of the ballistic expert also establishes that the bullet which was recovered from the body of the deceased at the tie of post mortem examination was fired from the pistol which was recovered on the basis of disclosure statement made by the accused Jagdish. The manner in which Pritam Lal Chopra was murdered by firing pistol shot from behind as indicated by the said two eye witness also stands corroborated from the medical evidence about the nature of the injury suffered by the said deceased. Therefore, the complicity of the appellant Jagdish in committing the murder of the deceased has been clearly established.