BHURA S/O JAGANNATH Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Under challenge in this criminal appeal are the judgement of conviction and order of sentence dtd. 17/9/1984 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Tonk (for brevity, 'learned trial Court ') in Sessions Case No.40/82 whereby, the accused-appellants (for brevity, 'appellants ') have been convicted and sentenced as under:

(2.) The brief facts, in a nutshell, are that based on the parcha bayan (Ex. P66) of Shri Tarachand (PW4) recorded on 3/6/1982 at about 10:30 am at Gram Panchayat Bhawan, Rajmahal, an FIR No.28/82 dtd. 3/6/1982 came to be registered at Police Station Duni, District Tonk for the offences under Ss. 302, 147, 148, 149, 436, 325, 323 and 379 IPC. It was averred therein that he is a resident of Kanjar Basti, Rajmahal and for last few days, the villagers of Village Rajmahal have boycotted the residents of the Kanjar Basti and were not permitting them to visit the village. It was alleged that on the fateful day of 3/6/1982, at about 5:00 am, 4-5 villagers had come to their basti and asked for the culprits who have allegedly stolen two fodder bundles from their fields and upon their denial, they asked him and his father Hawalia to accompany them to the village panchayat which they refused. It was further alleged that about 7:00 am, a large number of villagers, out of which some were named, came armed with lathis and attacked their basti. It was claimed that his father and Kanhaiya were beaten to death and some of them were injured including himself. It was also alleged that their houses and household goods were torched to fire and some articles were also stolen. After investigation, 33 accused were charge-sheeted for the offences under various provisions of IPC including Sec. 302 IPC. Charges under various provisions of IPC were framed against all the charge-sheeted accused persons who were put to trial. However, during the trial, accused-Surajmal expired and the proceeding was dropped against him. After trial, while, 12 accused persons were acquitted of the charges framed against them, 20 accused appellants were convicted and sentenced, as supra.

(3.) This appeal was preferred by all the twenty accused persons convicted by the learned trial Court, however, during its pendency, the appellants barring the appellants namely Bhanwarlal Gurjar, Uda Gurjar, Mohan, Polu Raigar, Abdul Salaam, Abdul Gaffar and Sukhdeva, expired. The legal representatives of two of the deceased appellants namely Puroshottam and Gheesa Lal were taken on record under Sec. 394 of the Cr.P.C. Therefore, this appeal survives qua the aforesaid 9 appellants.