BALU SHRAVAN AHIRE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE all the three appeals, namely, criminal Appeal No. 98 of 1996, Criminal Appeal No. 93 of 1996 and Criminal Appeal No. 106 of 1996 arise out of the same set of facts and a common Judgment and Order dated 6th january, 1996 passed by the learned Additional Sessions judge, Thane, in Sessions Case No. 640 of 1994 are disposing them off by one judgment. The three appellants were convicted for the offence under section 302 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code and were sentenced to imprisonment for life. They were further found guilty for the offence under section 201 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code and were sentenced to suffer R. I. for two years and to pay a fine of Rs. 500/- each, in default to suffer further R. I. for three months. They were further convicted for offence under section 392 read with 397 of the Indian Penal Code. They were sentenced to suffer r. I. for seven years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each, in default to suffer R. I. for one year under section 392 of the Indian Penal Code. They were separately sentenced to suffer R. I. for seven years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/-each, in default to suffer R. I. for one year for the offence under section 397 of the Indian Penal Code. Their substantive sentences were directed to run concurrently.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to the case, in brief, are thus :- Witness Subhash Salve, an Advocate by profession at nasik, owned a white coloured Ambassador car bearing No. MTJ-5598. He was personally using the car and whenever it was not required for his use, he used to give it on hire through an agency named Kohinoor Travels located in Nasik. Witness raju Lakade was working as a driver of the said car and he used to take the car to Kohinoor Travels office in search of passengers. As usual on 9th July 1994, at about 8. 00 a. m. , witness raju Lakade went to Kohinoor Travels with the car in order to get some customers. At about 4. 00 p. m. on that day, one ajay (deceased in this case), who was also a driver, came in the office of Kohinoor Travels and told the manager that he had some customers who wanted to hire a car for a local trip of Nasik. The manager of the travelling agency contracted witness Raju Lakade and told him to take the customers in his car. Both Ajay and Raju Lakade left at about 6. 00 p. m. to pick up the customers. Accordingly, Raju Lakade and deceased Ajay took the car to CIDCO area, Nasik and as per the direction of Ajay the car was taken in front of a house. Deceased Ajay went inside the house and after about half an hour returned with four persons and all of them sat in the car. Three strangers sat in the rear seat while the remaining stranger sat in the front portion of the car along with witness Raju and deceased Ajay. As per the instructions of the customers the car was taken to the Indira Nagar Zopadpatti where it was stopped in front of one hut and all the customers and deceased Ajay went in the said hut and came after some time. Thereafter the car was again taken to CIDCO area from where the customers were picked up earlier. Then two of the customers went inside the house and brought bottles of soft drink as well as liquor and started their onward journey. One of the customers told witness Raju to take them to Jawhar, a nearby taluka town, to meet his relative. Accordingly, witness Raju took the car by Satpur Road and from there he took on trambak Road in order to go to Jawhar. After travelling for some distance the customers told him to stop the car near a hotel, made some purchases and thereafter told him to start the onward journey. When the car approached a bridge, the witness Raju was asked to stop the car and two of the customers got down and went under the bridge to answer the nature s call. They returned after a while and thereafter they proceeded further. At about 10. 30 p. m. they came to village Murchundi where witness Raju was asked to stop the car. They all got down from the car. Witness Raju went in the hotel to have tea while the remaining persons waited outside. One of the customers at that time told Raju that it was too late to go to the relative s place and, therefore, they should go back to nasik. Return journey began and they travelled for about 20-25 minutes. It was about midnight when the car came near a bridge, one customer told witness Raju to stop the car. Suddenly one of the customers sitting on the rear seat put a rope around witness Raju s neck and confined him to his driver s seat and snatched away the keys of the car. Then they took deceased Ajay out of the car and started assaulting him with fist blows and kicks. Deceased Ajay was also assaulted with iron bars and wooden sticks on the head and backside. Ajay sustained grievous injuries and fell on the ground. Thereafter the strangers caught the legs of deceased Ajay and dragged him to the side of the road and threw him down in a ditch. Then they went to witness Raju and started assaulting him. As good luck of Raju would have it, one goods truck came from the opposite direction and the headlight of the truck fell on witness Raju. The strangers seeing the truck coming from the opposite direction ran towards the car and drove away with the car leaving behind the injured witness Raju, who was lying unconscious. Witness Raju regained consciousness after some time and tried to stop vehicles passing by, but no vehicles stopped when they saw his clothes were soaked in blood. He walked on foot upto Peth Naka on Nasik Road where there was a farm house. Witness Raju went to the farm house and woke up the people from that house. After initial reluctance, they took him in and then arranged for his journey, to Nasik early in the morning. The bus driver and conductor took him to trambak Police Station wherein he narrated the incident to the police.

(3.) TRAMBAK Police took witness Raju in their vehicle and proceeded to the place of incident, but they told him that the spot where the incident had taken place was not within their jurisdiction and it was within the jurisdiction of mokhada Police Station. They also arranged witness Raju s journey to Mokhada Police Station where Police Officer juikar sent witness Raju to hospital for medical treatment and then recorded his F. I. R. (Ex. 15 ).