LAL SINGH AND ANOTHER Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are three connected appeals arising out of the same incident. Appeal No. 1219 of 1957 is by Lal Singh and Parshadi; Appeal No. 1220 of 1957 is by Bhola, a cousin of Parshadi; and Appeal No. 1221 of 1957 is by Gulab Singh, Jaswa alias Jasram, and Mukhtara, who are cousins inter se. Lal Singh, Parshadi and Bhola are related to each other as cousins, while the three appellants in Appeal No. 1221 of 1957 are cousins inter se. On the prosecution case no relationship has been shown between the first group of cousins and the latter group of cousins, although there was a suggestion that all the appellants belonged to same party.

(2.) Originally, nine persons were prosecuted for offences punishable under Sec. 302/149, 147 and some also for committing an offence punishable under Sec. 148, IPC. These accused were prosecuted for a triple murder which is alleged to have been committed on the night between the 16th and 17-7-1956, in village Peethkhera. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, who tried the case, acquitted three out of the nine accused. The acquitted persons were Khushal, Netram and Harkesh. It may be mentioned here that these three acquitted accused were brothers of Bhola, who is the sole appellant in Appeal No. 1220 of 1957. Out of the remaining six accused--all the appellants in the three appeals before us--appellants Parshadi, Lal Singh and Gulab Singh have been convicted under Sec. 148, Penal Code and sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment each and appellants Mukhtara, Jaswa alias Jasram, and Bhola have been convicted under Sec. 147, Penal Code and sentenced to one and a half years' rigorous imprisonment each; while all the six appellants have further been convicted under Sec. 302/149, Penal Code and sentenced to death. There is, along with these three appeals, the usual reference under Sec. 374 of the Criminal Procedure Code by the learned Judge for the confirmation of the sentences of death passed by him on all the six appellants.

(3.) The case of the prosecution was that Parshadi appellant had an evil eye on one Ram Rati, sister of PW Ram Kali, wife of deceased Ram Chandra, and that when he was unable to get her in marriage he committed rape on her, sometime in April, 1956, even boasted in the village of having done so. Ram Rati appears to have been married earlier to one Amar Singh in 1953. The relationship between Parshadi and his relations, on the one hand, and Ram Rati's people, on the other, deteriorated considerably because of the alleged immoral assault by Parshadi on Ram Rati in 1956. On the prosecution case it was suggested that even though the relations had temporarily become very bad, Parshadi somehow managed to keep on friendly terms with Ram Chandra, Ram Kali's husband, and often used to meet him and talk to him, although this conduct of Ram Chandra in being friendly with Parshadi was not very much liked by his other brother Khazan or even by his father Mohan.