KANUBHAI HARIBHAI PATEL Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD learned advocate Mr. Ashish M. Dagli for the petitioner and learned Assistant Public Prosecutor Ms. Jirga Jhaveri for the respondent.

(2.) PERUSED the record. The petitioner has been chargesheeted by the Umra Police Station of Surat city dated 06.06.2012 by filing a charge -sheet dated 06.06.2012 under sections 302, 120(b), 114, 34, 182 and 212 of the Indian Penal Code read with section 135 of Gujarat Police Act. Such charge -sheet was filed pursuant to First Information Report No. 470/2011 dated 29.12.2011. The sum and substance of the complaint by one Vaishaliben, wife of Amitbhai Pravinbhai Kapasiyawala of Surat is to the effect that at about 10.00 am her husband left the house for his work and at about 12.00 pm, she received a call from her father -in -law that some people have attacked her husband Amit near New Court Building corridor and asked her to verify the facts, since her father -in -law was at Vadodara at the relevant time. Thereupon she immediately rushed to the New Court Building where near Hiral Apartments she found a gathering of crowd and thereupon she went into the crowd where she found a deadbody of one person who was bleeding from the mouth. She noticed, on watching the face, that the dead -body was of her husband Amit. For the cause of such attack and death she has categorically stated that her husband was owning, with other family members, several lands bearing survey Nos. 262 and 192 and certain land near ONGC township, which is known as Nageshwar Parshvnath Trust land and that there are several civil and criminal litigations going on for such properties. Since, several persons have tried to grab such land by forged document and got it mutated, for which applications were given to police. Therefore she believed that there is every possibility that rival groups had killed her husband by inflicting injury on the nodal portion of her husband's neck with a steel knife and to avoid the resistance and claim over land in question by her husband. Therefore there is no doubt that FIR No. 470/2011 dated 29.12.2011 is accurate so far as the name of the accused are concerned, but at the same time, it cannot be ignored that the complainant has categorically disclosed, the name of the accused in the incident with the survey numbers of the land for which there is a dispute. It is also evident that accused have entered into some transaction for lands bearing the same survey no. Therefore, the case is purely based on circumstantial evidence since probably there would not be proper eyewitness and, therefore, the entire evidence would be circumstantial evidence only.

(3.) I have perused the police papers, the allegations against the present petitioner is to the effect that accused no. 5 and 13, namely Ashok Nanjibhai Vaghani and Vinubhai Haribhai Patel who are yet not arrested since they are absconding wanted to grab the land. They engaged another absconding accused no. 3 Bhavsingh and entered into contract to kill the victim and his father (Praveen) and agreed to pay Rs. 15 lacs for such illegal act. In turn, absconding accused no. 3 Bhavsingh has entered into similar contract (supari) to kill victim and his father (Praveen) with absconding accused nos. 6, 7 and 8 namely Suresh alias Mitu Jaideo Dakwa, Santosh Arkit Shetti and Sangam alias Tikki Ghanshyam Pauda respectively. On such contract all such accused have conducted reki i.e. studied area and movement of the victim. However when they could not succeed in first attempt, the accused no. 3 Bhavsingh has assigned the contract to accused Dharmendra for 15 lacs and accused no. 4 Ashok assigned the same work to absconding accused no. 1 Dipak and agreed to pay Rs. 9 lacs for performing their commitment. With a view to avoid identity, they engaged absconding accused no. 2 Dipak by disclosing the name wrongly as Raju and thereafter, all of them had managed the activities for performing the crime as alleged, wherein they have purchased the weapon and decided to remain hidden near the New Court Building at about 10.00 a.m. on 29th December, 2011 so as to kill the victim. At that time victim was coming outside the New Court Building and when he was about to sit in car, accused no. 2 Dipak and accused no. 3 reached near the car and all of a sudden, made a blow with knife on his back and neck and thereafter, all of them ran away. During the investigation, it was found that the present accused has given an amount of Rs. 9 lacs to the accused no. 3 Bhavsingh to help him to run away from Surat and take shelter at the place of accused no. 10 and 11 knowing fully well that they have committed offence of murder.