AVINASH VERMA ALIAS RINKU Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal is directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dtd. 30/1/2018 passed by the learned Special/Upper Session Judge, Raipur in ST No.21/2016, whereby the appellant has been convicted under Sec. 302 of IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment with fine of Rs.10,000.00 with default stipulation.

(2.) The prosecution case, in brief, is that the appellant was friend of the deceased Rajbir Singh and both were having unnatural sex relations for last two years before the incident and on the date of incident at 10:30 PM the appellant along with the juvenile went to the house of the deceased at village Dhaneli and consumed alcohol and had carnal intercourse with the deceased, at that time some altercation took place between the juvenile and the deceased Rajveer Singh and because of that the appellant along with the juvenile killed the deceased by knife and stole a Led Tv, Tata Sky Set-top box, Mobile, Silver Chain and Wallet of the deceased. Thereafter the matter was reported by Khelu Ram, upon which a case was registered against the appellant and he was arrested. After investigation, charge sheet was filed before the Magistrate concerned. On the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution and material available on record, learned trial court convicted the accused/appellant, as mentioned in para 1 of the judgment.

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law and material available on record. There are material omissions and contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses. The memorandum and seizure witnesses PW-4 Holuram and PW-7 Mohan Nishad have not supported the case of the prosecution and have turned hostile. There is no eye witness in the present case and only on the conjectures and surmises the appellant has been roped in the present case. The chain of circumstantial evidence is also not complete. The appellant has been convicted only on the basis of his finger print found on the glass of liquor, but the learned Trial Court has not considered the above said aspects of the matter. Therefore, the appeal deserves to be allowed.