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: Omission of Not Fatal If Is Proved
The has upheld the life imprisonment of four men convicted for the 2008 murder of Bhura Singh, while simultaneously clarifying that the inadvertent omission of from the operative part of a judgment is not fatal when the prosecution successfully proves the of the accused. A division bench of Justices Salil Kumar Rai and Dr. Ajay Kumar-II dismissed the criminal appeal and altered the conviction from simpliciter to , terming the trial court’s lapse a “”.
A Property Feud Turns Deadly
The prosecution case revolved around a property dispute in Fatehpur district. Bhura Singh, the deceased, had purchased a fallen-down house from one Awadhram through a registered sale deed just days before the incident. The appellants – Dinesh Chandra Shukla, Akhilesh Chandra Shukla, Anil Kumar Shukla and Sunil Kumar Shukla – allegedly wanted to grab the same property and had got it measured through an advocate. On , Bhura Singh, his son Rajendra Singh (the informant) and brother Jhaller Singh went to one Ram Swaroop Singh to discuss a compromise. While they were talking, the four accused arrived armed with guns and a rifle, surrounded them, and after an exhortation to kill, climbed onto a roof and opened indiscriminate fire. Bhura Singh suffered multiple firearm wounds and died upon reaching Vijaipur Hospital.
The Trial Court’s Verdict and the Appeal
The convicted the accused under and sentenced each to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 10,000. In appeal, the defence mounted a multi-pronged challenge. They argued that the two eyewitnesses – the son and the brother of the deceased – were unreliable, that the medical evidence was inconsistent because the shots hit the victim from the front while he was allegedly running away, that the FIR was and , that the ballistic report did not link the recovered cartridges to the seized guns, and, crucially, that the trial court could not convict them under without assigning specific roles and without the aid of .
The High Court’s Examination of
The bench framed five specific questions and answered them after a meticulous reappraisal of the oral and documentary evidence. It found the testimony of PWs 1 and 2 to be consistent, reliable and fully corroborated by the site plan and the medical evidence. On the FIR, the court noted that the FIR was lodged promptly, the case details appeared on the contemporaneous inquest papers, and mere delay in receipt by the magistrate did not vitiate the prosecution.
The most significant legal discussion pertained to the omission of . The bench observed that the FIR, the charge‑sheet, the charges framed by the trial court and even the statements under were all couched in terms of . The trial judge, in his conclusion, had clearly held that the accused acted “in a pre‑planned manner with .” However, the operative part of the judgment mentioned only .
Key Observations: A ‘’
Drawing on the ’s exposition in Suresh v. State of U.P. [(2001) 3 SCC 673] and Gurpreet Singh v. State of Punjab [(2005) 12 SCC 615], the High Court reiterated that is but a that imposes . The judges noted:
“It is seems to be mere an irregularity. Learned trial Court has concluded that accused were sharing . Law is well settled that is … even when the charge under is not framed, but the prosecution has led the evidence regarding … then the assailants can be convicted with the aid of .”
The court further held that the sequence of events – the appellants arriving together with weapons, surrounding the victims, exhorting to kill, chasing them and firing indiscriminately from the roof – unmistakably demonstrated a pre‑arranged plan and to murder. Consequently, the oversight in the operative order was nothing more than a .
The Verdict: Conviction Stands, Section 34 Added
Upholding the life imprisonment sentence, the High Court dismissed the appeal and, while affirming the judgment on conviction, modified it to read “” instead of “”. The appellants, who were on bail, were directed to be taken into custody forthwith to serve the remaining part of their sentence. The court also clarified that the failure to send the blood‑stained soil for serological analysis was a but did not dilute the credible eyewitness account, and that the negative ballistic report only indicated that the actually used weapons might not have been recovered; it did not discredit the prosecution’s oral evidence.
