CHHATARPAL GANJHU Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants have preferred this appeal against the judgment of their conviction recorded under Sections 395 and 397 of the Indian Penal Code and order of sentence passed in Sessions Case No. 103 of 2005 by the Additional Sessions Judge, FTC, Latehar whereby each of them has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for ten years and seven years and to pay fine of Rs. 2,0001 - with default stipulation for each count.

(2.) THE offence is related to highway dacoity of a number of vehicles including the police vehicle by road hold up putting boulders on the road. The miscreants, aged about 20"25 years, were variously armed with sticks, tangi and pistols committed dacoity for about 40 -45 minutes in several vehicles, smashed the window pans of the vehicles thereby causing injuries to the passengers. On the statement of the driver -home guard no. 9175 a case was instituted vide Chandwa P .S. Case No. 20 of 2004 on 21.2.2004 for the offence under Sections 395 and 397 of the Indian Penal Code against 20 -25 unknown miscreants. The police after investigation submitted chargesheet against the appellants pending investigation against others. The appellants were put on trial and were accordingly convicted and sentenced giving rise to the present appeal.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the appellants submitted that P.W.1 -Dharampal Mehta and P.W. 2 -Ranjan Sharma though supported the factum of alleged occurrence but none of them could claim to identify any of the appellants or other miscreants at the time of alleged road dacoity and that neither had been earlier called for to participate in the Test Identification Parade of the suspects. It was P.W. 3 -Jai Jangal Gupta who erroneously identified the appellants without disclosing the manner of their identification during alleged occurrence the learned counsel urged and therefore, no reliance could have been made by the trial court on uncorroborated testimony of the single witness who happened to be home guard driver for inflicting conviction to the appellants. The testimony of this witness may well be presumed that it would not have been free from bias, and the possibility that the appellants were shown to him after their arrestation prior to so -called test identification parade cannot be ruled out, under such situation conviction of the appellants would tantamount to miscarriage of justice.