HARJEET SINGH Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) APPELLANT was tried for the offence of Section 304 IPC, but the learned Court below has found him guilty for the offence of Section 304A read with Section 201 IPC and sentenced him appropriately for the same. Having heard learned Counsel for the parties, it is amply clear that the appellant Harjeet Singh was convicted by the learned Sessions Judge, Nainital only on the basis of extra judicial confession which he allegedly made to the PW1 Kishan Singh (maternal uncle of the deceased) and PW2 Laxmi Chandra (owner of the shop). As the prosecution story goes, the deceased Virendra Singh, a young man of around 20 years, was a cleaner on the truck, where the accused appellant was the driver. Some unidentifiable human bones were alleged recovered at the instance of the accused appellant on 7.9.1997. The pant and shirt of the deceased were also lying nearby in an agricultural field.

(2.) THE police had come into motion only on 7.9.1997 when Kishan Singh (PW1) lodged the FIR in the Kotwali Haldwani regarding the extra judicial confession by the appellant to him in front of Laxmi Chandra (the shop owner). PW1 has admitted that he saw the deceased before 5 to 6 days of lodging of the FIR, while in the report Ex. Ka -1, Kishan Singh has disclosed the extra judicial confession from the mouth of the accused that before 10 to 12 days, he had some altercations with the deceased. So, on the following night, he took his vehicle at a place and asked the victim to go beneath the chassis of that truck in order to rectify some defect in the wiring. Meanwhile, by mistake he started the vehicle and Virendra was soon under the wheel of the truck. So, he died.

(3.) NO effort has been made by the prosecution to prove that the deceased was a cleaner on that truck. It was incumbent upon the prosecution more so when in the statement under Section 313 CrPC, it has been categorically denied by the accused that he does not know any such victim Virendra Singh and that no person named Virendra Singh was cleaner on that truck.