TMI Blog1977 (2) TMI 136X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... unate case where the appellants are alleged to have run amuck and started killing as many as five persons, some of them with their guns. They did not leave the spot until the five deceased had been killed. There was of course some background of enmity but the prosecution case as presented reveals five brutal and ghastly murders. What is even more unfortunate is that the occurrence is said to have started on a very trivial provocation which is said to have been given by Amrik Singh who trespassed into the field of Devinder Singh appellant while taking tea for his father in the field. Devinder Singh turned out the little boy on which Nath Singh and Partap Singh deceased who were working in the field protested. The protest of these persons brought a chain of threats by Devinder Singh that he would teach them a lesson. This incident had happened on May 2, 1973 at about 6 P.M. It was soon followed up by the brutal and armed attack by the appellants on the deceased who were chased and shot dead one after the other. Smt. Inder Kaur widow of deceased Tulsa Singh also happened to be in the field and she also received injuries at the hands of Maha Singh who is said to have given two gandasa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... adhu Ram at police station Ladwa in Kurukshetra District which at a distance of five Kms. from the village Sonti where the occurrence had taken place. It appears that the F.I.R. was lodged at 7.00 P.M. within an hour of the occurrence and Investigating Officer PW-23 left for the place of occurrence and prepared inquest reports of the deceased persons and recovered some empties in the next morning which were sent to the Ballistic Expert. During the course of investigation it is said that two of the accused, namely, Jagmohan Singh and Gurdev Singh made disclosures to the Police Officer Nasib Singh as a result of which guns were recovered from concealed spots. The dead bodies were sent for postmortem and Smt. Inder Kaur was also sent to the Doctor for examination of her injuries. After the usual investigation a charge-sheet was submitted against the appellants who were tried by the Sessions Judge with the result indicated above. 4. The defence of the accused was that there was serious enmity between the appellants and the deceased persons resulting from a number of civil and criminal litigations and the relations of the deceased persons along with their friends had conspired to imp ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... gment. We would, however only refer to the findings of the two Courts below. So far as PW-3 Sadhu Ram is concerned the Sessions Judge, after careful consideration of his evidence and the various comments made against it, came to a finding which runs thus: From the history of Sadhu Ram P.W. given above it may be said that he was not friendly towards the accused party. But it would be not proper to say that he was such a great enemy of the accused party that he would go to any length to involve the accused falsely in a murder case like this. In view of my above discussion I hold that the statement of Sadhu Ram P.W. inspires confidence and is true. The learned Judge has, after considering the entire history of the dispute and enmity between the parties come to a clear conclusion of fact that no direct enmity between Sadhu Ram and the accused appears to have been established and Sadhu Ram, therefore, was not an interested witness. He may not have been very friendly with the accused, but that is no reason to discard his evidence. The High Court fully agreed with the finding given by the Sessions. Judge and observed as follows: Sadhu Ram had not, except the pre-emption case fi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... High Court. The High Court also affirmed the finding of the Sessions Judge so far as Trader Kour is concerned and observed thus: We do not feel impressed by the argument of the learned Counsel for the appellants that on account of her relationship with two of the deceased she was a got up witness. The more fact that the Assistant Sub-Inspector recorded her statement at a belated stage does not reduce her evidentiary value. She had been named at the earliest opportunity and had been examined for her injuries on the following day of occurrence. 10. The last of the eye-witnesses is P.W. 22 Rattan Singh whose evidence has also been believed by the Sessions Judge who observed as follows: The fact that his name was not re corded in the First information Report in a way shows that it was not a case of planned First Information Report otherwise his name would have been mentioned therein. After going through the statement of Batten P.W. 2s, I teal inclined to hold that if also inspires confidence and is true. The High Court also came to a similar finding as follows: Because of his disinterestedness the evidentiary value of the testimony of Rattan Singh deserves a considerabl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e them on the same grounds and comments which have been rejected by the two courts below and in our opinion rightly. 12. This brings us to the evidence of P, W. 20 Amrik Singh who, though not an eye-witness, is a witness to prove the genesis of the occurrence. He is a young boy of 12 years and was taking tea to his father in the field and while doing so he trespassed in the field of Devinder Singh and was abased by him. Nath Singh protested to Devinder Singh for hurling abuses on the innocent child on which Devinder Singh threatened to teach him a lesson. The threats given by Devinder Singh were soon thereafter translated into action when the appellants appeared on the scene armed with guns and gandasis and killed as many as five persons. The trial Court has believed the evidence of P.W. 20. Amrik Singh, and in our opinion rightly, and observed as follows: In such a situation it was normal on the part of Davinder Singh accused to leave that place by throwing a challenge. I therefore, hold that the statement of Amrik Singh P.W. inspires confidence and is true. The only serious comment made against this witness was that he was examined by the police 20 days after the occurre ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Kartar Singh who was later examined by the Court to prove that the F.I.R. was despatched immediately without any reasonable delay. Kartar Singh further deposed that he left the police station Ladwa on the night of May 2, 1973 and delivered the copy of the F.I.R. at the house of the Deputy Superintendent of Police which is situated in Kurukshetra. According to his evidence the F.I.R. was delivered at the residence of the Deputy Superintendent of Police at about 10 p.m. on May 2, 1973 and thereafter as he could not get any conveyance from Pipli to Karnal he delivered the special report to the Ilaqa Magistrate in the morning of May 3, 1973, at about 7 A.M. It was contended that the evidence of this witness is trumped up by the prosecution. The Courts below have rejected this contention and in our opinion rightly. Kartar Singh's departure from the police station Ladwa is mentioned in the post script of the F.I.R. itself and in the other police registers which have not been called for to throw doubt on the authenticity of the police records. Moreover, there is one very important circumstance which fully corroborates the evidence of Kartar Singh. It appears from the evidence of the I ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tor was not available he was in a position to examine the bodies only at about 4.00 P.M. when he received the bodies personally. At any rate, this circumstance does not at all throw any doubt on the prosecution case. 16. It was then argued that although the Investigating Officer prepared the inquest reports which contained the signed statements of Roop Singh and Sardara Singh who gave an eye-witness account of their version, yet these witnesses have not been examined. In the first place the practice of getting the statements of the witnesses signed has been deprecated by this Court and is in fact expressly prohibited by Section 162 of the CrPC. Violation of this provision may sometime diminish the value of the testimony of the witnesses when they come to the Court. In the instant case, however, as none of these persons were examined as witnesses, this infirmity does not affect the prosecution at all. It is true that the statements of these witnesses have been mentioned in, the inquest report, but the statements made by them are clearly hit by Section 162 of the CrPC and will, therefore, not be admissible in evidence if they were not examined as witnesses. Even so, the Sessions J ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ngh came again to the spot and fired another shot Counsel argued that in the first place on the evidence of Sadhu Ram there should have been only one injury on the person of Jit Singh, whereas the Doctor found two injuries. Secondly the story that the deceased was fired at after his death is falsified when the Doctor found both these injuries to be ante-mortem. In our opinion this infirmity is not of a serious nature so as to render the prosecution case impossible of belief. Having regard to the manner in which the occurrence took place, the brutal and ghastly actions of the appellants who were bent upon taking the lives of one person after the other, it would be impossible for any of the witness to give a meticulous account of the nature or the number of shots fired by the appellants. It may be that Sadhu Ram noticed Jagmohan Singh firing one shot only, whereas in fact he may have fired two. What is important is that Sadhu Ram categorically says that Jag mohan Singh fired a gun shot at the deceased Jit Singh and the Doctor finds in fact that gun shot wounds had been sustained by Jit Singh. In these circumstances the narrative of the witness is substantially corroborated by the med ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ollowed the dastardly killing of as many as five persons it would be very difficult for the witnesses to remember with absolute precision and accuracy the number of shots inflicted. Moreover, the cartridges contain several pellets which enter the body and spread and may result in multiple injuries. The accused did not cross-examine the Doctor to show that these injuries could not be caused by pellets discharged from a single cartridge. 21. Lastly it was argued that according to the prosecution Nath Singh and Partap Singh had been dragged upto a distance of 1 Kila i.e. , 70 feet, which appears to be improbable. The medical evidence, however, shows that the dead bodies contained abrasions which could only be produced if the bodies were dragged. It was suggested by the learned Counsel appearing for the State that in a sheer state of desperation the accused wanted the situs at the occurrence near their own fields so as to claim the right of private defence and that is why they wanted to drag the bodies from the place of occurrence to somewhere near their own fields. This appears to us to be a plausible explanation for the act of the accused in dragging the bodies. It would thus be s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ld be absolutely no occasion for this fact to have found place in the inquest reports which were prepared during the night of 2nd and 3rd May, 1973. 23. Another comment made by the learned Sessions Judge was that Sadhu Ram had stated in his evidence that no article was recovered in his presence. This stray statement, in our opinion, is not sufficient to discredit the recovery of the three empties. Sadhu Ram when questioned about the recovered articles may not have in mind the recovery of the empties but some other material items like clothes, weapons etc The Sessions Judge was, therefore, wrong in rejecting the recovery of three empties merely because of a stray statement made by P.W. 3 Sadhu Ram in his cross-examination. The High Court, while reversing the finding of the Sessions Judge on this point, has observed as follows: We do not find any defect in this evidence of the prosecution and the learned trial Judge in our view was on the wrong premises to reject this evidence. Perhaps the High Court has also not noticed that in one of the inquest reports the recovery of three empties is clearly mentioned, which in fact settles the controversy once for all. In these circumstan ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the night of May 2, 1973 and seven empties in the morning of May 3, 1973, has been established beyond reasonable doubt and we see no reason to distrust the credibility of Exts. P.K.K. and P.Y. The recovery of the empties is a very important circumstance which fully corroborates the evidence of the eye-witnesses, taken along with the evidence of the Ballistic expert that some of these empties could have been fired from the guns sent to him. 25. We now come to the recovery of the guns Exts. P.Z. 1 and P.A. A/1. According to the prosecution the appellant Jagmohan Singh made a disclosure statement to the Police Officer Nasib Singh in the presence of Kishan Singh Ex-Sarpanch that he was prepared to point out the gun which he had concealed at a particular place. This statement is Ext. P.A.A. and is witnessed by Kishan Singh. The accused was 'accordingly taken to the spot on May 25, 1973, and according to the evidence of Kishan Singh, who appears to be an absolutely independent witness and against whom 'no animus though suggested has been established, it is clear that the disclosure statement was made by accused Jagmohan Singh to Nasib Singh in his presence and the accused was ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o be factually incorrect. In his statement Kishan Singh says that he and Sardara Singh had gone to the police station to inquire about the arrest of the accused persons. The Sessions Judge, however, relied on the statement made by Kishan Singh before the police which is Ext. D.F. at page 73 of the High Court Paper Book. In this statement he merely stated that he had gone to the police station Ladwa by the way. His statement does not show that he was present only by chance or without any purpose. On the other hand his statement clearly shows that he had gone to the police station and was present there for some reason or the other when Gurdev Singh made the statement. Thus the learned Sessions Judge has misread the statement of this witness before the police as put to him in his cross-examination. Being a villager one can fully understand the anxiety of the witness to find out whether the accused had been arrested, particularly because they were absconding for quite sometime. The High Court has also not, considered the fact that the reasons given by the learned Sessions Judge are either factually incorrect or based on purely artificial appreciation of evidence of Kishan Singh and Nas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... having gone through the entire evidence on the record and the judgments of the courts below and after hearing counsel for the parties and for the reasons that we have already given, we are fully satisfied and convinced that the prosecution case against the appellants has been proved beyond reasonable doubt and that the appellants were rightly convicted by the Sessions Judge and the High Court. 29. This, however, does not dispose of the matter completely, because it appears that the commitment inquiry was held under the CrPC, 1973 and the Sessions Judge after delivering the judgment of conviction has not given any opportunity to the accused of being heard on the question of sentence separately. In Santa Santa Singh v. State of Punjab 1976CriLJ1875 this Court has taken the view that under the provisions of the CrPC, 1973, it is incumbent on the Sessions Judge delivering a judgment of conviction to stay his hands and hear the accused on the question of sentence and give him an opportunity to lead evidence which, may also be allowed to be rebutted by the prosecution. This procedure has not been adopted by the learned Sessions Judge and, therefore, the sentences of death passed on t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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