RAMBIR ALIAS RAMU Vs. STATE OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above captioned two appeals arise out of the common impugned judgment dated May 27th 2005 whereby both the appellants have been convicted for committing the offence of murder of Raj Kumar @ Raju and vide order dated May 31st, 2005, they have been sentenced by the trial court to imprisonment of life with a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each and in the event of failure to pay the fine, they have been directed to undergo simple imprisonment for three months each. With the consent of the parties, both these appeals are being disposed of by this common judgment as they arise out of the one common impugned judgment.

(2.) THIS is an unfortunate case where an intervener has been purportedly murdered by appellants Rambir s/o Shri Ram and Mahender s/o Shri Ram Snehi who had dispute on non returning of lock to one Munna Lal by appellant Mahender s/o shri Ram Snehi. On the Nav Durga day i. e. 13th day of April of the year 2002 at about 7. 00am, when Munna Lal (PW-7) had demanded back his lock from appellant mahender s/o Shri Ram Snehi near the garage of Jagdish, a quarrel had taken place but the matter was patched up with the intervention of Ajay Pal (PW-3), satbir (PW-4) and Raj Kumar @ Raju (since deceased ). However, on the same very day, at about 9. 00am, both the appellants alongwith co-accused Rakesh Kumar (since acquitted by the trial court) and another associate came to the shop of ajay Pal (PW-3) and they had started abusing Ajay Pal (PW-3) as well as Satbir (PW-4) and Raj Kumar @ Raju (since deceased) was also present there. All the four accused (including the two appellants) started assaulting Ajay Pal (PW-3), satbir (PW-4) and Raj Kumar @ Raju (deceased) who was also present there, intervened to save Ajay Pal (PW-3) and both the appellants allegedly inflicted knife blows on the chest and right side of the waist of Raj Kumar @ Raju who had died on the way to the hospital. Aforesaid is the substratum of the prosecution case.

(3.) UPON completion of the investigation of this case, a charge sheet under section 302/34 of IPC and under section 323/34 of IPC was filed in the first instance against both the appellants and on September 17th, 2002, both the appellants were called upon to face the trial on the basis of the above said charge sheet. The prosecution has unfolded its case by getting examined 18 witnesses and prosecution case primarily rests upon the shoulders of the two eye witnesses namely Ajay Pal (PW-3) and Satbir (PW-4 ). There is also evidence of munna Lal (PW-7) and Jagdish (PW-18) to support the prosecution case. Besides this, there is medical evidence of Dr. Anil Kohli (PW-1) who has proved the postmortem report Ex. PW1/a. The Investigating Officers (I. Os) of this case are inspector Iqbal Mohd (PW-17) and Inspector Ved Singh (PW-18 ). In fact, Jagdish (PW-18) has been inadvertently labeled as PW-18. In fact, he should have been pw-19. This is mentioned just to keep the record straight.