CHOUBERAM Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 17.10.1998 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Surajpur, District Sarguja in Sessions Trial No. 173/1992, whereby the learned Additional Sessions Judge, convicted the appellants for the offence punishable under Sections 304 (Part-I) and 307 IPC and sentenced each of them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and to pay fine of Rs. 1000/- and rigorous imprisonment for 7 years and to pay fine of Rs. 500/- with default stipulations with a direction to run the sentence concurrently.

(2.) The case of the prosecution is that, on the date of incident i.e., 29.04.91 at 9.00 AM, Aagarsai (PW-6) and Jagsai went to the house of Goutam (PW-3), who is cousin of Aagarsai (PW-6) for courtesy visit as the mother of Goutam (PW-3) was sick. After the visit, when they were returning through the Badi of Budhram and reached near the Pipal tree, appellants Chouberam and Rambraksh, who were hidden at that time armed with a Tabbal and a Lathi, respectively, suddenly came near Agarsai (PW-6) and Appellant Chouberam assaulted Agarsai with the Tabbal. On this, Agarsai (PW-6) took turn towards the appellants and having seen the appellants armed with the aforesaid weapons, challenged them to assault from his front. Thereafter, both the appellants came before Agarsai(PW-6) and assaulted him with the Tabbal and Lathi. Having seen this marpeet, Jagsai fled to the house of Gopal. Ramdasiya (PW-1), who lived in the house of Agarsai (PW-6) itself, Goutam (PW-3) and other villagers, having seen the marpeet, reached the place of occurrence. On their intervention, the appellants stopped the marpeet and began to return their home. Having informed by Jagsai, deceased Gopal came out of his house and went to the appellants. He asked the appellants why did they assault his uncle Agarsai (PW-6), on this a hot talk took place between them and thereafter appellant Rambraksh with the Tabbal and appellant Chouberam with the Lathi assaulted Gopal. Even after intervention of the present people, the appellants did not stop assaulting. As a result of their assaults, Gopal, having injured, fell down on the road in front of the house of the appellants. Thereafter, the appellants entered their house. Ramdasiya (PW-1), after completing the distance of 6 Kms from the place of occurrence Village Newra to Police Station Surajpur, reached to Police Station Surajpur and lodged First Information Report (Ex.P-1) against the appellants on the same day at about 11 AM. On the basis of her report, a crime was registered against the appellants vide FIR (Ex.P-1). During the course of investigation, when Sub-Inspector R.P. Singh (PW-13) was going to the place of occurrence, but before he could arrive there, Baran (PW-4) Dharamsai (PW-9) and other villagers were taking Agarsai (PW-6) to the hospital. Sub Inspector R.P. Singh (PW-13), who was taking Gopal in his jeep towards the hospital, also took injured Agarsai(PW-6) in his jeep and handed over both of them to the hospital at Surajpur for their medical examination. In the meantime, R.P.Singh (PW-13) tried to get dying declaration of injured Gopal registered, but he could not succeed. Dr. B.R. Hotchandani (PW-11), after primary medical examination of both the injured persons, advised to take them to the Hospital at Ambikapur for their further treatment. When both the injured persons were being taken to the hospital at Ambikapur, Gopal died on the way. Agarsai (PW-6) was admitted in the District Hospital Ambikapur for further treatment. Dr. M.K. Jain (PW-8) performed postmortem examination on the dead body of deceased Gopal and opined vide Ex.P -4 that cause of death was shock, multiple incised wounds and excessive blood loss.

(3.) In further investigation, plain soil and blood stained soil were also seized from the place of occurrence vide Ex.P-14. Patwari Suresh Rai (PW-2) prepared site-map vide Ex.P-2. Statements of witnesses were recorded vide Ex.P-9 and Ex.P-10. Memorandum statements of the appellants were recorded and at their instances, the Tabbal was seized from appellant Chouberam vide Ex.P-16 and the Lathi was seized from appellant Rambraksh vide Ex.P-17. The seized articles were sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for chemical examination, but no FSL report is available on the record.