DHANRAJ Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the evening around 8.30 P.M. on 12th May, 1987, while sitting outside his house in village Tajpur, Police Station Ateli, Distt. Narnaul of Haryana State, Ram Bhagat (now deceased) was talking to Hazari Lal Khati of village when accused Dhanraj the village barber, passed therefrom in a drunken condition. While passing, accused Dhanraj asked Hazari Lal to arrange a 'Chilam' for him and on his inaction to obey his command grappled with him. Ram Bhagat intervened and separated the two whereupon accused Dhanraj started abusing Ram Bhagat and went to his house muttering the abuses. In the meantime, Sher Singh, another village barber came there and abused Ram Bhagat in his anxiety to assure Dhanraj that he was not alone. Immediately thereafter, Dhanraj returned from his house nearby carrying a hockey stick with him and gave two blows therewith on the head of Ram Bhagat. Out of these two blows, one fell in the middle of his head and the other one of left side of his head. Ram Bhagat raised an alarm whereupon his younger brother Gobind Ram and Ram Niwas Ahir were attracted to the site and thereafter the accused-appellant Dhanraj ran away from the place of occurrence carrying the hockey stick, used by him as weapon of offence, with him. Injured Ram Bhagat was taken to the Primary Health Centre, Ateli, around 10.00 P.M. on 12th May, 1987. After being medico-legally examined therein, the patient was taken to Safdarjang Hospital, New Delhi, around 12 noon on 13th May, 1987,the following day and succumbed to the injuries therein around 6.45 AM on 17th May, 1987.

(2.) ON being charged with the commission of offence under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code accused Dhanraj and for the commission of offence under section 302 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code both the co-accused in Dhanraj and Sher Singh pleaded not guilty thereto and claimed to be tried. Vide its impugned judgment dated 14th December 1987 learned trial court acquitted accused Sher Singh, Dhanraj accused alone was convicted of the commission of offence under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life for it. Feeling aggrieved therefrom Dhanraj convicted accused has filed Criminal Appeal No. 3-DB of 1988 in this Court.

(3.) OCULAR account of the occurrence narrated by Gobind Ram PW7 and Hazari Lal PW8 in regard to the accused having given two hockey stick blows on the head of the deceased gets supported from the contents of medico-legal examination report Exhibit PA and the oral deposition of Dr. S. C. Goel PWl who states that the injuries detected by him on the person of the injured Ram Bhagat (now deceased could be caused with the hockey stick Exhibit P1, Dr. V. S. Yadav, Medical Officer General Hospital Narnaul. PW3 also asserted, "In our opinion death was due to coma as a result of compression of the brain caused by head injury which was sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of life. All the injuries were ante-mortem."