GOBIND SINGH Vs. KRISHNA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge in these appeals is to the judgment of a Division Bench of the Patna High Court, accepting the appeals filed by the accused persons who had filed two appeals before the High Court, one was by the respondents 1 to 11 in Criminal Appeal No.61 of 2001 and other by respondent No.1 in Criminal Appeal No.139 of 2001 before the High Court, which by the impugned judgment disposed of the two appeals filed by the accused persons and the reference made under Section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short the 'Code') for confirmation of death sentence awarded by the trial Court which was numbered as Death Reference No.1 of 2001. The present appeals have been filed by the informant. The respondents in the present two appeals excluding respondent No.1-Krishna Singh were convicted for offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short the 'IPC') and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment and were also convicted under section 17 of the criminal law amendment Act, 1998 and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for six months. Respondent Suresh was further convicted under Section 27 of the Arms Act, 1959 (in short 'Arms Act') and was awarded 3 years of rigorous imprisonment. Respondent No.1-Krishna Singh was convicted for offence punishable under Section 302 IPC and was sentenced to be hanged till death..

(2.) The allegations on the basis of which law was set in motion read as follows:

(3.) Stand of the appellants-accused persons before the High Court was that none of the so-called two eye-witnesses namely, Gobind Singh (PW-2) nor his father Ramraj Singh (PW-4) could have seen the occurrence but finding the dead body of the deceased they fabricated a story to implicate the accused persons. It was pointed out that letter Ext.-4 which was stated to be the motive of the crime has been created for the purpose of the case. It was stated that none of the accused persons could be said to have any grudge against the deceased so as to kill him and it was not proved by cogent evidence that the accused were members of the banned organization M.C.C. On the other hand the Public Prosecutor referred to the evidence of PWs 2 and 4 and stated that the conviction was in order.