BHOLA SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these three appeals had arisen from a common judgment of conviction dated 3rd July, 1992 passed by Sri Anwar Ahmad, 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Nawadah in S.T.No. 78/90, 4/92 through which he convicted the appellant Bhola Singh to undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and the remaining three appellants were also convicted and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code. All these appellants were also found guilty under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code but no separate sentence was passed under this count.

(2.) In Cr. Appeal No. 224 of 1992 the sole appellant is Bhola Singh whereas in Cr. Appeal No. 241 of 1992 Raj Kishore Singh is the appellant and in Cr. Appeal No. 244 of 1992 Manoj alias Manoj Kumar and Raj Kumar alias Raju are the appellants. This common order will dispose of all these three appeals.

(3.) The prosecution case in short is that on 26.7.1989 the informant Anjay Kumar son of Lala Shashi Bhushan Kumar Sinha of Mohalla Sonar Pati, Vijay Cinema Chowk within Nawadah town had left his residential house for going to teach some students as a private tutor and he was apprehended near his house on the road at about 8.10 P.M. and surrounded by these four appellants Appellant Bhola Singh was holding revolver and the other three appellants were holding lathis. One of the appellant Manoj said that the informant has now become Hero and as such all these appellants assaulted him by lathi and fist and slap. An alarm was raised by the informant and so his younger brothers Anand Kumar and Rajesh Kumar (P.W. 1 and P.W. 2) and the deceased Ravi Shankar, who were inside the house immediately came down and the moment they reached there, again appellant Manoj shouted that Ravi Shankar is also a Hero of the area and as such appellant Bhola Singh fired from a pointblank range on the chest of Ravi Shankar due to that he was seriously injured and when Anand Kumar came to his rescue, he was assaulted on the head by the butt portion of the revolver by Bhola Singh. Similarly, appellant Manoj brought Chholni (cooking apparatus) from his nearby shop and assaulted on his head. On Hulla, Rajendra Prasad and Santosh Kumar also came down from the house of the informant but in the meantime all the appellants escaped away.