BABU LAL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Balm Lal appellant has been convicted under Section 302 I. P. Code and sentenced to imprisonment for life by the Sessions Judge, Lucknow. The charge against the appellant was that on 11-1-1958, at about 4.30 P. M. he along with his servant Lalta struck the deceased Ramnath with a scythe with the intention of killing him and thus committed an offence under Section 302/34 I. P. Code. The trial court did not frame the charge properly for in every case where section 34 I. P. Code is applied the court should clearly mention that the crime was committed in furtherance of a common intention. This fact was- not mentioned in the charge framed by the trial court. The trial court acquitted Lalta and gave him the benefit of doubt and convicted the appellant under Section 302 I. P. Code simpliciter.

(2.) As we am criticising the trial court, we may at this very stage observe that we have not been impressed by the reasoning of the trial court when it completely acquitted Lalta, the other accused. The reasoning, adopted by the trial court cannot bear scrutiny and good evidence has been ignored on fanciful grounds. The medical evidence alone is conclusive on the point that two persons at least committed this crime and yet the trial court by fallacious reasoning came to the conclusion that the bruises and the abrasions on the person of the deceased could have been caused in grappling alone. We fail to understand how a large dimension on the face could have been caused by friction alone. It is inconceivable that one assailant used a blunt weapon and then put it down and picked up a sharp-edged weapon. We, therefore, have no doubt in our minds that the convincing evidence of two eye-witnesses together with the medical evidence was ignored by the trial court and on faulty reasoning it gave the benefit of doubt to Lalta accused. This, however, in our opinion has not caused a grave miscarriage of justice because we arc inclined to the view that Lalta did not share the intention of the appellant and he could have been held responsible only for his individual act. His individual act brought him under the purview of Section 323 I. P. Code alone and he should have been convicted and punished under that section.

(3.) The prosecution story is that the appellant had taken the Theka of the crop in the orchard situate in the Government House compound. He erected a hut in the said orchard and began to reside with his wife Shrimati Kamla (C. W. 1) and his two children including Kumari Meena Kumari (C. W. 2). Kumari Meena Kumari was aged only about 7 years at the time of the incident. Earlier the appellant resided in Nishatganj and the deceased Ramnath was his maternal cousin who also resided in the same mohalla. The appellant suspected that illicit intimacy existed between Ramnath deceased and his wife and he thereupon took his wife to Kanpur. There he called a Panchayat to divorce his wife, but the Panchcs enquired from him whether he had seen with his own eyes anything which would justify his suspicions. The appellant could not say that he had seen his wife and the deceased together in a compromising position and so the Panches directed that he should reside with his wife and not divorce her. The appellant then came to the Government House orchard and started living there as mentioned above. This Panchayat was held about two months before the incident.