RAJKUMAR BHAWANIDIN DUBE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal has been preferred against the conviction of the Appellants under Section 302 read with Sections 34 and 397 read with Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. The Appellants have been sentenced to life imprisonment by the 8th Additional Sessions Judge, Pune.

(2.) The Appeal is now restricted to Appellant No.1 i.e. Accused No.3, since Appellant No.2, the other Appellant, died while in jail. Therefore, we confine our appreciation of facts and the scrutiny of the evidence led before the Sessions Court only to decide whether the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge with respect to the Accused No.3 needs to be set aside.

(3.) It is the case of the prosecution that on 4th October 1998, Accused No.3 along with Accused No.2 entered Dura Technik Photo Lab (Konika Square) Pvt. Ltd. with the assistance of Accused No.1. They committed a robbery and killed one employee of the lab, Ramkrishna Balkrishna Uddhav, in the process. Accused No.1 was working there as a Security Guard. Although 4th October 1998 was a Sunday, which was a holiday for the lab, maintenance work was in progress. Some of the employees were working well past midnight. One Shaikh Shaffy Ismail, an employee of the lab, left at about 1.00 a.m., while Ramkrishna Uddhav, the deceased, remained in the lab informing him that he would leave a little later. The next morning i.e. on 5th October 1998, when one of the employees of the lab reached there at 7.00 a.m., he noticed that the shutter of the lab was partly open. He entered the lab and found Accused No.1 sleeping on the bench. He asked for a key of the mezzanine floor of the laboratory from Accused No.1, the Security Guard, and found the door was already opened. He followed Accused No.1 to the mezzanine floor and found the deceased lying in a pool of blood with cut injuries on his throat. This employee telephoned the managerial staff of the laboratory informing them of the incident. They in turn complained to the police who arrived at the spot.