TIRATH SINGH YADAV Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By these appeals, the appellants have challenged the impugned judgment dated 20.03.2004 passed by the court of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi, ('ASJ') in Session Case No.100/2000 (1/2003) vide FIR No.371/2000, Police Station Vasant Kunj, whereunder both of them were convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ('IPC') and order on sentence dated 29.03.2004, sentencing them to undergo life imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- each and in default, to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of two months.

(2.) As per the case of the prosecution, the deceased, Ram Singh @ Lallan Yadav, the appellant, Tirath Singh Yadav (A-1) and Chaman Yadav (A-2) were employed by Bhupinder Kumar Kalra (PW-1) at his dairy farms No.37-38 and 23-22. The son of the deceased, namely, Raju Yadav (PW-2) used to stay with his father at the dairy farm and was prone to waste a lot of water from the tubewell. A-1 and A-2 used to object to the deceased's son wasting the water. This caused an altercation one day which led the accused persons threatening the deceased that they would kill him if his son continued to cause such wastage.

(3.) As per the further case of the prosecution, on the intervening night of 21/22.06.2000, the deceased was murdered by A-1 and A-2 which was witnessed by two employees of the said dairy farm, Moti Lal (PW-16) and Sukhlal Yadav (PW-6). One Mr. Satish, driver of the Tata Tempo 407 (PW-5), who came at the spot to load buffalos on that night, found the deceased lying unconscious and informed the owner Raju Kalra. The dairy owner and his brother came there and informed the police pursuant to which a PCR van reached the spot. The deceased was taken to Safdarjung Hospital where he was declared 'brought dead'. The post-mortem on the body of the deceased was conducted on 23.06.2000. The post-mortem report states the cause of death as 'shock, head injury and other associated injuries ante-mortem in nature, caused by the application of blunt force from a blunt object collectively sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature'.