TUKESH SINGH Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FACTUAL ASPECTS : These appeals take exception to the judgment dtd. 10/9/2010 of the High Court of Chhattisgarh. A total of nine accused were prosecuted for the offences punishable under Ss. 147, 148, 307, read with Sec. 149 and Sec. 302, read with Sec. 149 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, 'the IPC'). The Trial Court convicted them under the aforesaid Sec. . For the offences punishable under Sec. 302 read with Sec. 149 of the IPC, the sentence of life imprisonment was imposed. The present appellants are accused nos.1 to 8. They and accused no.9 (Ramesh Singh) had preferred an appeal before the High Court. By the impugned judgment, the High Court confirmed the judgment of the Sessions Court.

(2.) One Kashiram Rathore, a resident of a place called Masturi, had borrowed a certain amount from one Ganpat Singh. As he could not repay the loan, he gave his shop and the land adjacent to it to Ganpat Singh, who, in turn, gave the shop to his relative Rajendra Singh (PW-11) and opened a medical store through him. After commencing business, PW-11 purchased the shop and the adjacent vacant land from Kashiram by way of a Sale Deed.

(3.) The case of the prosecution is that on 23/3/2001, the accused, with a common object, armed with deadly weapons like sword, rod, knife, poleaxe, club, etc. went to the disputed shop and murdered Manrakhan Singh and Narayan Singh and attempted to kill PW-1 (Shivraj Singh), PW-3 (Virendra Singh), PW-4 (Judawan Singh), PW-5 (Visheshwar Singh Thakur) and PW-8 (Rakesh Singh Thakur). These are the injured eyewitnesses. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered at the instance of PW-8. The Police claimed that recovery of a sword was made from the 1st appellant (Tukesh Singh-accused no.1). Another sword was allegedly recovered at the instance of the 3rd appellant (Baba alias Rajesh Singh-accused no.3). A dagger like weapon stained with blood was allegedly recovered at the instance of accused no.7 (Mangal Das). A sword was allegedly recovered from the 2nd appellant (Basant Singh-accused no.2). A bloodstained club was allegedly recovered at the instance of the 4th appellant (Pappu Singh-accused no.6). A wooden plank was recovered at the instance of accused no.4 (Anil Singh) and one rod at the instance of accused no.5 (Vishnu Singh).