PREM CHAND Vs. STATE OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted of an offence under section 323 Indian Penal Code (for short IPC) by an Additional Sessions Judge vide judgment dated 12th October, 1984 and sentenced to imprisonment already undergone (i.e. for about a couple of days) and a fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default of payment of fine he has been awarded rigorous imprisonment for three months. Feeling aggrieved he has Come up in appeal against his conviction and sentence.

(2.) The prosecution case in brief is that there is a katra bearing house No. 7441, Gali Tel Mill, Paharganj, Delhi, in which several families including these of Mool Chand complainant (P.W. 1) as well as Prem Chand appellant reside in different portions. On the morning of 21st June 1981 at about 6 A.M. Smt. Chander Kanto (P.W. 6), niece-in-law of Mool Chand, noticed that the quilt which was spread over a cot on which her husband Babu Lal was sleeping had been partially burnt. She enquired as to who had burnt the quilt. The appellant, his son and co-accused Ramesh Chand alias Pappu and other members of his family were present there. However, getting no response to the query she started hurling abuses at random. The appellant came out and remonstrated as to why she was abusing him. She replied that she was not abusing him but he too indulged in calling names to her. Mool Chand who was then sleeping on the roof too protested and asked the appellant not to hurt abuses. However, Prem Chand, his son Ramesh and his brother Laxmi Narain, who were armed with an iron rod and brick-bats went upstairs. The appellant was having an iron rod (saria) in his hand and he dealt a blow with the same on the head of Mool Chand. The other accused beat him with stones. As a result, he started bleeding from his head. All the three accused then hated him from the cot and threw him down the roof with the result that he fell on the pucca floor of the courtyard and sustained injuries on his head and both the legs. Some unknown persons informed the police post Nabi Karim on telephone that exchange of brickbats was going on in a house in Tel Mill Street and on receipt of the same, Head Constable Ved Singh (P.W. 5) arrived at the venue of the occurrence. He found that both the parties were pelting brickbats and stones on each other and had sustained injuries. He intervened and asked the parties to behave. He then sent the injured persons numbering eight in all for medical examination after preparing their injury sheets Ex. P.W. 5/Bi to B 8 along with two constables. After sometime the injured persons came back to the place of occurrence. Ved Singh then recorded Statement Ex. P.W. 1/A of Mool Chand and sent the same to the police station for registration of a case under section 308/34 IPC. On completion of investigation, the ,appellant, his son Ramesh Chand and his brother Laxmi Narain were prosecuted for offences under Section 308/34 IPC and Section 323/34 IPC. It was alleged that they had caused injuries to Mool Chand with such intention or knowledge and under such circumstances that if they had cased his death they would have been guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Further they were alleged to have caused voluntarily simple hurt to Suresh Durga, Jiwan Ram and Madan.

(3.) Vide impugned judgment the learned Additional Sessions Judge acquitted both Laxmi Narain and Ramesh Chand holding that the offence had not been brought home to them beyond reasonable doubt. However, he convicted the appellant of an offence under section 323 only for causing simple hurt to Mool Chand.