ROOPA Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Accused appellants have preferred this appeal against the judgment of learned Sessions Judge, Dungarpur dated 30-4-83 whereby he convicted appellant Roopa under S. 302, IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment and Hawji under S. 325, IPC and sentenced him to undergo four year's rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) In short, on 2-11-1982 at about 5 p.m. Hanja was working in his field named Dari Ropada in village Kanela (Vikas Nagar). Roopa and Hawji came there and quarrelled with him. Both the appellant fell down Hanja and thereafter Roopa throttled the neck of deceased while Hawji sat on his chest and gave im beatings by fists. It was P.W. 2 Savita, the daughter of deceased, who was grazing her cattle nearby and when Hanja cried "MAAR DALA - MAR DALA," she came running at the spot. Some P.W. 1 was also present on the nala where he had come with his bullocks to make them drink water. The accused appellants after seeing Soma and Savita ran away towards their houses. Amrit P.W. 4 also saw the accused appellants running. The motive behind this murder was that Hawji had a quarrel with father of Huka because both of them had purchased a water pump in partnership and deceased Hanja used to tell Hawji not to quarrel. Therefore, the accused appellants were under the impression that he favoured Huka's father. Report Ex. P/1 was lodged at police station Dhambola at 10 p.m. This police station is about 25 kms. away from the place of occurrence. The police went there on 3-11-1982 and made a site inspection as well as prepared Panchnama of the dead body. The post-mortem of the dead body of Hanja was performed. Its report is Ex. P/4. During the investigation it came to the notice of the Investigating Officer that when accused appellants were going back, Punja P.W. 8 and Nanji P.W. 10 met them near Nawa Talab. They enquired as to why the accused appellants killed Hanja? The accused appellants were not happy and threw stones towards them. During this scuffle Hawji and Roopa, appellants, suffered some injuries. They were examined by P.W. 6 Dr. Biharilal Berva. After investigation charge-sheet was submitted before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Dungarpur who committed the case to the learned Sessions Judge. Learned Sessions Judge framed charge under S. 302, I.P.C. against Roopa and under Ss. 302/34 and 323, I.P.C. against Hawji. Both of them denied their indictment and claimed trial. Thereupon prosecution examined its witnesses. Accused appellants were also examined under S. 313, Cr. P.C. wherein their defence was that they did not kill Hanja but the dead body of Hanja was placed in the house of Roopa by the prosecution witnesses and when they were going to report the matter to the police, Punja and Nanji met them, out of them Punja threw a stone towards Hawji and bite on the finger of Roopa. Thereafter Nanji and Punja went away and Roopa and Hawji appellants went back. They did not examine any witness in defence. The learned Sessions Judge heard both the parties and convicted the accused-appellants as stated above.

(3.) We have heard the learned counsel for the appellants and the learned Public Prosecutor.