PRATAP SINGH Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) APPELLANT Pratap Singh was prosecuted alongwith three other persons, viz. Adaram, Budhram and Juglal for offence under sec. 302, read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code for committing the murder of Surjaram but the learned Sessions Judge convicted only Pratap Singh for offence under sec. 302 (simpli-citer) and acquitted all the other three persons on the ground that sec. 34 could not be invoked in the circumstances of this case. It is against this judgment of the learned Sessions Judge, Shri Ganganagar dated 28th August, 1971 that the present appeal has been filed by Pratp Singh.

(2.) BOTH Pratap Singh and Surjaram were the residents of Village Mehrana under Police Station, Bhadra. Surjaram was the Sarpanch of Mehrana village Pan-chayat. It is clear from the evidence that there were two parties in village Mehrana, one headed by Surjaram and the other by Pratap Singh. Criminal as well as civil litigation was going on between Pratap Singh and Surjaram and, therefore, they were obviously on inimical terms. On 5th of October, 1970, P. W. 2 Nanu Singh, Tehsil-dar of Bhadra Tehsil visited Mehrana to check up the electoral rolls which were to be used for the coming panchayat elections. It is said that hot words were exchanged in the presence of the Tehsildar between Pratap Singh and Surjaram on the question of inclusion and deletion of certain names from the voters' list. According to the prosecution story, the names of the sons of Kurdaram (P. W. 1) and Maduram (P. W. 4) were deleted. On 6th of October, 1970, Surjaram alongwith Kurdaram and Maduram went to Bhadra in his jeep with a view to get the names of the sons of Kurdaram and Maduram again included in the voters' list. Of these three persons Surjaram went inside to see the Tehsildar while the other two, namely, Kurdaram and Maduram kept sitting on a Chabutra outside the tehsil building. After 15 or 20 minutes, Surjaram returned from the Tehsildar's room and informed Kurdaram that the Tehsildar was busy in some other work and, therefore, they would come to the tehsil after some time. All the three then started for going to the market. According to the prosecution, when the complainant party reached the shop of Surjeet Singh Sethi (P. W. 3) they saw Pratap Singh armed with a. 12 bore double barrel gun and Adaram having a Barchhi in his hand coming towards them from eastern side while Budhram, who was armed with a single barrel gun and Juglal who had a Barchhi in his hand, came from the northern side and surrounded Surjaram. Pratap Singh at the point of his gun threw a challenge to Surjaram to be ready to court death. Surja Ram in order to save himself immediately rushed into the shop of Surjeet Singh Sethi, but he was closely followed by Pratap Singh When Surjaram was trying to enter the inner compartment of the shop, Pratap Singh opened a gun fire towards Surjaram from a very close range with a result that the pellets hit the neck of Surjaram and he immediately dropped dead on a 'durri' which was spread in that shop. It is said that Adaram at that time was guarding the eastern door of that shop while the other two associates of Pratap Singh, namely, Budhram and Juglal were standing on the northern door of that shop. Soon after Surjaram died, the assailants left the spot and went towards the north. This incident took place at 11. 30 a. m. in the busy commercial locality of Bhadra town. When the assilants left the shop of Surjeet Singh Sethi, Kurdaram and Maduram entered the shop and having found that Surjaram was lying dead, Kurdaram directed Maduram to proceed to Mehrana to inform the relations of deceased Surjaram and he directly went to the Police Station, Bhadra which was hardly 1 Km away from the spot of occurrence to lodge the report of the incident. The first information report (Ex P. 1) was taken down by P. W 10 Anar Singh, Station House Officer and after taking down the report he immediately proceeded to the, spot for further investigation. Shri Anar Singh prepared a panchayatnama (Ex. P. 4) and Fard Surat-hal of the corpse (Ex. P. 5 ). He also took from the place of incident various articles in his possession and prepared documents Exs. P. 6, P. 7, P. 8, and P. 9. It is said that before he could proceed further, P W. 9 Manohar Lal, CO. came to the spot and directed Anar Singh to proceed in search of the assailants and he took over charge from Anar Singh to proceed with the investigation.

(3.) WE propose to deal with the infirmities in the prosecution case as pointed out by Mr. Mulla as its proper place, but before we proceed to examine the material placed by the prosecution we may dispose of the general argument of the learned counsel for the appellant about the non production of the local eye witnesses who had witnessed the occurrence in the heart of the town. In this connection we may observe here that P. W. 3 Surjeet Singh Sethi who could not deny his presence in his shop at the time of the incident was examined in this case, but the way he acquitted himself in the witness box shows that he was not prepared to discharge his role as an eye "witness to oblige the prosecution by unfolding the truth regarding the identity of the assailant of Surjaram. It appears that the people had got scared due to the bold and dashing action of the assailants in the broad day light and therefore it was not an easy task for the investigating agency to pick out such persons from the market who could have taken courage to depose against such formidable criminals who could take the life of a man in such a busy locality and that too in broad day light, especially when the accused persons were not by then apprehended and were free to take revenge against any one who could act as eye witness of this incident. It is in this background that we find no substance in the argument of Mr. Mulla that the the absence of the witnesses from that locality who must be present at or near the scene of occurrence must create a doubt about the truthfulness of the prosecution story.