RAJ NARAIN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Six accused-appellants, namely, Raj Narain, Dev Narain, Shiv Singh, Vijai Singh, Raj Bahadur Singh and Anirudh Singh preferred this appeal against judgement and order dated 27.7.1981 passed by Sri J.P. Sharma, the then V Additional Sessions Judge, Kanpur in S.T. No. 337 of 1980. All of them were convicted under Section 302 I.P.C. read with Section 149 I.P.C. and sentenced to life imprisonment for the double murder of Ram Swarup and Ram Pratap Singh. All of them, excepting Dev Narain, were also convicted under Section 148 I.P.C. with sentence of two years' rigorous imprisonment. Dev Narain was convicted under Section 147 I.P.C. with a sentence of one year's rigorous imprisonment. The sentences of each of them were directed to run concurrently.

(2.) For the present, the Court is concerned only with the accused-appellants Dev Narain son of Dularey and Shiv Singh son of Raj Narain. Raj Narain was the brother of Dev Narain. Thus, the said two accused-appellants are uncle and nephew. The remaining four accused-appellants died during the pendency of appeal and as such the appeal in respect of them abated.

(3.) The genesis of the prosecution case was the F.I.R. lodged on 4.6.1980 at 8.50 A.M. by an eye-witness Jai Singh P.W. 7 (brother of the deceased Ram Pratap Singh). The incident took place on that day at about 8.00 A.M. near a brick kiln within the territory of village Harbaspur, Police Station Bidhnu, District Kanpur. The distance of the place of occurrence from the Police Station was about 2 kms. Jai Singh P.W 7, Raj Kumar Pandey P.W. 8 are said to be the eye-witnesses of the incident. Raj Bali was also one of the eye-witnesses, but he was examined as CW 1. The prosecution story, omitting unnecessary details, may be set forth for appreciation of the discussion that has to follow.