PANDURANG RAGHUNATH SHINDE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Upon the prosecution case of murder of the victim Raju Naidu on 3rd november, 1999 at 10 p. m. in Panchsheel Nagar, mulund, Mumbai by the accused in the course of quarrel by piercing a weapon like hack-saw blade in the arm pit of the victim which proved to be fatal, the accused has been convicted of the offence for murder and sentenced to suffer imprisonment for life under section 302, IPC.

(2.) It is the case of the appellant/ accused that he had no intention to commit the murder of the deceased, had no enmity with the deceased and that in a scuffle the deceased who was drunk, first assaulted the appellant by giving him a fist blow and the appellant inflicted a single blow upon the deceased on the 6th intercostal space without undue force and has not attempted to repeat the blow. Further contention on his behalf is that the alleged instrument is merely a hack-saw blade. A very strong endeavor has been made by the learned Advocate for the accused that the offence is not proved by various eye-witnesses who have been examined and that three of the eye-witnesses have turned hostile and another eye-witness is only a child eye-witness whose evidence must be taken with extreme caution. He argued that her evidence is such which is to be entirely discarded because of major contradictions/omission and the fact that her statement was recorded 3 or 4 days after the incident.

(3.) The prosecution case rests upon the FIR filed by the complainant examined as pw-1 and the eye-witness account of PWs-1, 2, 3 and 5. PWs-1, 2 and 3 have turned partly or fully hostile. PW-5 is the child witness. This eye-witness account of the child witness is sought to be corroborated by the injuries suffered by the deceased victim as shown in the postmortem report exhibit 13 deposed by PW-4 the doctor who prepared the report. The C. A's report shows that the blood stained clothes of the deceased as well as knife, had blood of group a which is the blood group of the accused.