SHIVRAJ BIPURAY JADHAV Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The above appeal has been filed against the judgment of a Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka dated 27-5-2002 in Criminal Appeal No. 80 of 1997 whereunder the order of the learned Sessions Judge, acquitting the appellants, came to be set aside and the appellants were convicted for offences under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC, in addition to accused No. 2 being convicted for an offence under Section 324, IPC and imposed the sentence of life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 2,000/- with usual default clause.

(2.) The case of the prosecution was that there were some misunderstandings and enmity between the family of the deceased and the accused on the question of sharing the ancestral residential house, that as a sequel to the same, on 27-5-1995, when the deceased Krishna Jadhav was returning to his house at about 11.00 PM, the inmates of the house of the deceased heard the barking of the dog of accused No. 1 and when P.W. 1 came out to find out whether it was her husband, accused No. 4 came out of her hut holding a stick and battery and started abusing the deceased. Thereafter, when the deceased told that he was not a thief entering the hut and why she had brought the torch and the stick, accused A-4 assaulted the deceased with a stick abusing him and she was followed by the other accused who were holding an axe, an iron pipe and sticks and all the accused started indiscriminately assaulting the deceased with the respective weapons in their hands as a result of which the deceased fell on the ground in front of the house of the accused and succumbed to the injuries on the spot. The Sub-Inspector of Police, P.W. 12, on receiving a telephonic message at about 12.30 PM on the following day recorded the information about incident in question, visited the spot and after conducting an enquiry to ascertaining the place of actual occurrence and visiting the same as well as collecting the other details returned to the police station, registered a Criminal case being crime No. 54 of 1995 at about 2.30 PM and submitted a FIR to the Jurisdictional Magistrate through P.W. 9, which reached to the Magistrate at 1.00 PM. On receipt of the information of registration of the case by P.W. 13, the Circle Inspector of Police, Athani, he proceeded to the jurisdictional Police Station and took up further investigation. After completion of the investigation by recording statements and having the post-mortem conducted, the charge was laid for offence under Sections 341, 302 and 324 read with Section 34, IPC and on committal by the Judicial Magistrate, the matter came up before the Court of learned 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Belgaum. During the course of trial, P.Ws. 1 to 14 were examined in support of the prosecution case and documents, Exhs. P-1 to P-18 were marked and M.Os. 1 to 16 were produced. For the defence, no oral or documentary evidence was let in. The accused were duly questioned under Section 313, Cr.P.C.

(3.) On completion of the trial and consideration of the materials on record, the learned Sessions Judge was of the view that the prosecution case, as disclosed by its witnesses, suffered several discrepancies and inconsistencies and the investigation conducted by PWs. 12 and 13 also fell short of the required standard and norms and the prosecution failed to substantiate the charges levelled against the accused beyond reasonable doubt. In coming to such conclusion, it is seen from the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge that the fact that occurrence took place two days before the new moon day and therefore his assumption that having regard to the darkness of the night, the eye-witnesses could not have really witnessed the occurrence weighed much in recording a finding of acquittal. Besides this, the learned Sessions Judge entertained doubts as to the real motive for the accused to commit the offence and a slender suggestion made for the defence about the possibility of somebody else inflicting the injuries on the deceased, seems to have created serious doubt in the mind of the learned trial Judge about the involvement of the accused in the occurrence.