SEWA RAM Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants in these two appeals were tried by the Vth Additional Sessions Judge, Hamirpur in Session Trial No. 248 of 1978. All of them were convicted under section 302 Indian Penal Code and were awarded life imprisonment against which this appeal has been preferred in the High Court.

(2.) ON 25-6-1978 a First Information Report was lodged at Police station Panwari at 8.45 A.M. by one Ganga alleging that his son Roop Singh had been done to death by the appellants. It was alleged that gabout a year prior to the incident Roop Singh had mis -behaved with the wife of Amar Chand accused. A panchayat was called where the panchas got a compromise effected between the parties. However the parties were harbouring ill will on account of the said incident. It was in this background that on the 24th August, 1978 at about 5 p.m. Roop Singh deceased had gone to the shop of Guljari Bania to purchase Biri and tobacco. When he did not return for about an hour Ganga the complainant, father of Koop Singh went to find him out. When he reached near the shop of Guljari he saw that Har Prasad with kulhari and the other- appellants with barchhis were causing injuries to his son inside the court-yard of the shop of Guljari. He and other persons challenged the assailants who after coming out from the shop" went towards their houses. His son Roop Singh had also wielded lathi on Sewa Ram appellant. When the complainant and other witnesses went near Roop Singh they found him dead. The assailants had left the axe and two towels near the dead body. Since while coming to lodge the report on the previous evening it rained heavily with the result that the Deolari river in between had over-flooded, he could not lodge the report in the previous evening and he had come to lodge the report after the water in the said river had receded. ON the said report the case was registered against the accused persons and the investigation was taken up by the Sub-Inspector Lakhan Singh Parihar, PW 7. He went on the spot, made the necessary recoveries, prepared the inquest as also the site plan and sent the dead body for post mortem examination. He searched the accused but could not find them. However the investigation was completed by S.I. Lalloo Singh, PW 8 who submitted the charge sheet whereafter the accused were committed to stand their trial before the court of Sessions.

(3.) WE have heard Sri P. N. Misra learned counsel for the appellants and Sri Jagdish Tewari, learned State Counsel.