RAJESH RANJAN @ PAPPU YADAV Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. Braj Kishore Prasad, learned Counsel for the Petitioner as well as Mr. Ramanand Yadav, learned Counsel for the State.

(2.) Fardbeyan which had been made the basis of this case seems to have been recorded at 4 A.M. on 8.11. 1991 about an occurrence which allegedly took place at 10 P.M. on the preceding day though the distance of the police station written in the formal part of the F.I.R. is only one kilometre. Although in the Fardbeyan, it is said that when after a meeting, a legislator, Anand Mohan Singh along with his men were proceeding in a car, ahead of which the informant was going on a Motor Cycle, it was found that the road had been blocked by a truck and it is said that this Petitioner along with his other men were there and this Petitioner who was armed with a rifle, shot at the informant, Shambhu Kumar Singh, who sustained injury. It was also said in the Fardbeyan that two persons, one Kalanand Jha and one Ajay Singh had been caught by the persons of the Petitioner's side and taken away but it is not specified as to which of the persons of the Petitioner's side caught them.

(3.) It has been argued by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner that the case diary clearly shows that the Investigating Officer received one information at about 10.10 A.M. on 7.11.1991 itself from one Abdul Sattar that firing was going on and thereafter, the Police officer had met Anand Mohan Singh, who informed him (the Police Officer) that he was going with the injured and that two persons of his side had been abducted away. It has been submitted by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner, and in my opinion rightly, that this information about which the police officer stated to have received from the legislator, Anand Mohan Singh, ought to have been treated as the F.I.R. He has also pointed out that the Police Officer has also written in the case diary that he proceeded further to the spot where he found that some superior Police Officers had already reached there. It is submitted by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner that F.I.R. could have been recorded much earlier giving the earliest version of the occurrence but only on the next morning it came belatedly in the shape of the Fardbeyan that forms the basis of the F.I.R. of this case. He also pointed out that in the information given by the legislator to the Police Officer, there was no specific mention of the fact that this Petitioner had any hand either in the shooting or in the abduction. It is definitely indicated even from the Fardbeyan that firing had been resorted to by both the sides learned Counsel for the Petitioner has further submitted that even in the statement of Shambhu Kumar Singh recorded as the Fardbeyan, the Petitioner has not been specifically named as abductor and by the statement of one Gaurishankar Jha would indicate that this Petitioner had played main role in the abduction and killing of the two persons.