STATE OF HARYANA Vs. MEWA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the Judgment and Order of a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated August 10, 1984, passed in Criminal Appeal No. 106-DB of 1984, acquitting the accused-respondent Mewa Singh of the charges under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 25 of the Arms Act; the appellant being the State of Haryana.

(2.) The victim of the crime was one Ram Kumar, said to have been killed by a pistol shot fired by Mewa Singh-respondent. The cause of the crime was that the deceased had a first paternal cousin Tara Chand whose wife Smt. Om Devi about six months prior to the occurrence was said to have developed illicit connections with the accused-respondent. The deceased-Ram Kumar as well as his brothers Narsi, P.W. 6 and Ved Parkash, P.W. 7 and other members of the family as also Tara Chand and other members of his family objected to this connection and had time and again warned the accused-respondent from maintaining it and visiting the house of Tara Chand in order to meet Smt. Om Devi. This group of people live in a cluster of houses in village Thana Gujran, focal point of which was a place meant for housing their cattle (nohra) where their woman folk would often converge. This was a place of rendezvous for the accused-respondent and Smt. Om Devi where they had often been seen together by members of the complainant party.

(3.) On the day of the occurrence i.e. August 28, 1983, at about 6.30 p.m. the accused-respondent was seen having entered the house of Smt. Om Devi in the absence of her husband and heard cutting jokes with Om Devi in the courtyard, while members of extended family of her husband were in and about in their respective houses. At that juncture Ved Parkash, P.W. 7 and his brother Ram Kumar-deceased went there and sought explanation of the accused-respondent as to why he had come to the house of Om Devi when they had dissuaded him from doing so. Such stand had been taken up by complainant party because the said illicit connection had become a talk in the village and the family members had occasionally been taunted in that behalf. Thereupon, the accused-respondent arrogantly replied that he would continue visiting Om Devi and nobody could stop him. Upon this, Ved Parkash, P.W. 7 and the deceased on the one hand and the accused-respondent on the other started exchanging abuses, slaps and fists and in the process were drawn to the street. While so the accused-respondent is said to have run and gone inside the room of one Sadhu Ram situated close by and immediately thereafter to have come out armed with a pistol with which he fired a shot on Ram Kumar-deceased as a result of which he fell in the street and died thereat. Ved Parkash, P.W. 7 with the help of Narsi P.W. 6 who too had witnessed the occurrence, and their brother Kartara removed the deceased to their nohra and placed his dead body on a cot. Narsi, P. W. 6 thereafter lodged the First Information Report at 9.45 p.m. at Police Station, Pehowa at distance of 13 kilometers from the village, to Sub-Inspector Sadhu Ram. P.W. 10. The special report reached the concerned Magistrate at midnight at Kaithal, at a distance of 25 kilometers from Police Station, Pehowa.