BHAI LAL Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are the (three appeals in which the appellants have been convicted by the Civil and Sessions Judge, Allahabad, under Section 395 read with Section 397 IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years. Among them Bhai Lal appellant of Criminal Appeal No. 2948 of 1973 is stated to have died during the pendency of the appeal.

(2.) THESE appeals high-light the insecurity of our rural life. Lal Bahadur first informant of this case resides in village Kashipur within the Police circle of Nawabganj. His house faces south. To the west and south-west of his house there are a number of bamboo clumps and to the east and south of his house there is an abandoned brick-kiln. On 24-6-1968 at about 11 P. M. the male members of the house were sitting outside the house and were having a sanoke. They were talking about the sale of bullocks with Ganga Varma and his guest. After taking his meals Lal Bahadur came out of the house to give morsel to the dog. They noticed 14 or 15 dacoits had come. They surrounded the house and asked them to sit silently otherwise they would be shot. One of them deprived his mother of the Han- suli. His brothers Baij Nath Singh and Bindesari Singh tried to rush inside the house and close the doors but they were prevented from doing so by the bad characters. However his sister-in-law succeeded in chaining the door from inside. The dacoits thereafter broke open the door by axing it. The dacoits thereafter plundered the house. Lal Bahadur Singh succeeded in escaping through the western door. He raised an alarm in the village which attracted to the scene of occurrence a large number of villagers including Ram Nath, Bhajan Lal, Murli, Baijnath, Ram Shanker, Chotey Lal and others. The villagers had with them torches, lathis, ballam, pharsa and other weapons. They set fire to the Patai and Sarsenta lying to the east and also to the west of the house of Lal Bahadur. The dacoits continued their indiscriminate firing. However, to the great relief of the villagers Armed Police on hearing the news of the dacoity came on the scene. They took their position behind the bamboo clumps which are to south west of the house of Lal Bahadur. They also shouted to the villagers that they should not worry much as they had come. They also asked the dacoits to surrender otherwise they would be shot. The dacoits did not pay any heed to it and returned fire. The Police party also fired at the dacoits. Result was that one of the dacoits received fatal shot in consequence whereof the dacoits took to their heels and escaped towards the north with the booty that they could get as a result of plundering the house of Lal Bahadur. They had to leave behind them the dead body of one of their companions and a double barrel gun. It was also claimed that at the time of dacoity a lantern was burning outside the house when the dacoits came and a kerosene oil lamp was burning inside the house.

(3.) THE autopsy on the body of the unidentified dead body of the dacoit found on the scene of occurrence was performed on 26-6-1968 at 3 P. M. by Dr. B. D. Barat, Medical Officer of the Moti Lal Nehru Hospital, Allahabad. According to him, the deceased was aged about 30 years and the duration of the death was less than two days. He had found one gun shot wound on his left palm with exit wound on the back of the left palm and a second gun-shot wound 1/4" x 1/4" x abdominal cavity on the left lumber region. It was a wound of entry with an exit wound on 4"x3 1/2" with everted margins on the left side of the abdomen and lower part left side chest, passing obliquely upwards from behind forwards loop of intestine protruding out from the exit wound. On internal examination the abdominal wall was found torn on the left side front of abdomen upper part. Stomach was badlly torn, THE death, in the opinion of Dr. Barat, was due to shock and haemorrhage as a result of injuries to the stomach, small intestines and large intestines.