IMPORTANT POINTS
1. Where there is eye witness account of an incident and if such evidence is acceptable, existence or nature of motive would hardly matter.
2. For determining common intention, prior concert or meeting of minds may be determined from the conduct of offenders unfolding itself during course of action and declaration made by them just before mounting attack.

Headnote:(i) Indian Penal Code, 1860-Section 302/34-Deceased while returning with his daughter PW1 was intercepted by accused appellants who were armed with axe, takua and dang-Deceased was hit with axe on his head-PW2, brother of PW1 arrived on hearing noise and PW1 and PW2 were also assaulted-Conviction by trial Court and upheld by High Court-Appeal-Contention that motive alleged by prosecution was very weak-If evidence of eye-witnesses was to be accepted then existence or nature of motive would hardly matter-Non-examination of any independent witness also would not affect prosecution use since incident was a family feud-Deficiencies were however to be kept in mind while considering creditworthiness of PW1 and PW2-Evidence of PW1 and PW2 found acceptable and there was no material contradiction-Conviction did not call for interference. (Paras 11 to 13)
       (ii) Indian Penal Code, 1860-Section 34-All that the prosecution has to establish is that there was a prior concert or meeting of mind-Though assault on deceased was made by A1 but A2 and A3 armed with weapons prevented PW1 and PW2 from preventing A1 to assault deceased-All accused had gathered in front of house of A1 and proceeded to assault deceased, which showed that they shared common intention-High Court was right to invoke Section 34 IPC. (Para 14)
       (iii) Criminal Procedure Code, 1973-Section 157-Delay in FIR reaching jurisdictional Magistrate-Evidence to show that in reality there was no delay in preparing FIR-Delay thereafter in communicating it to Magistrate did not give any room to doubt that said document was created after much deliberation.

JUDGMENT

Santosh Hegde, J.-In regard to an incident which took place on 5.5.1990 at about 8.30 p.m. in village Jangal, Police Station Pathankot, a complaint was lodged against 6 accused persons which was recorded by ASI Ram Dass and on completion of the said investigation, he filed a chargesheet only against Nachhattar Singh A-1, Prem Singh A-5 and Sukhdev Singh A-6. During the course of the trial, the learned Sessions Judge found sufficient material to proceed under Section 319 of Cr.P.C. against the other 3 accused, namely, Balram Singh A-2, Khushal Singh A3 and Parhlad Singh A-4, and having included them in the array of accused persons, he tried all the six for the offences punishable under Sections 307, 302, 326, 324, 148 read with Section 149 IPC.

2. In appeal before the High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh, the High Court allowed the appeal of 3 of the accused persons, namely, A-4 to A-6, and confirmed the conviction and sentence imposed on the other 3 appellants i.e. A-1 to A-3.

3. Out of the 3 accused persons convicted by the High Court, A-1 has not preferred any appeal and only A-2 and A-3 are before us in this appeal.

4. The prosecution case, stated briefly, is that in view of some previous enmity arising out of the fact that Prem Singh A-5 had called the sons of deceased Kirpal Singh as Bhangi and drunkards, there was some altercation a few days earlier between the two groups belonging to A-1 and the deceased Kirpal Singh. It is pursuant to the abovesaid incident, on 5.5.1990 at about 8.30 p.m. when deceased Kirpal Singh and his daughter Smt. Raj Karni PW-1 were coming towards their house from their cattleshed in front of the house of Nachhater Singh (A-1), A-1 intercepted the deceased armed with an axe along with Balram Singh A-2 was holding a Takua, Khushal Singh A-3 armed with a Kirpan, Parhlad Singh A-4 armed with a dang, Prem Singh A-5 and Sukhdev Singh A-6 who were unarmed. It is the prosecution case that all these persons attacked the deceased and PW-1 during which

attack A-1 gave a kulhari blow on the head of deceased Kirpal Singh, consequent to which the deceased fell down still A-1 continued to inflict more blows on the fallen body of the deceased. At that time, when PW-1 raised an alarm hearing which Kashmir Singh PW-2 came to the spot and he was also attacked by A-2 with a Taqua and A-3 also gave blows with kirpan on the back and abdomen of PW-2. The further blows given by A-2 fell on the left arm, right leg and left heel of PW-2. At that time, A-1 gave blows to PW-1 on left arm and left hand. Thereafter PW-2 was dragged into the house of A-1 by accused persons. However; due to the intervention of the people who had by then gathered there, PW-2 was saved and the injured persons including the deceased were removed to the Civil Hospital, Gurdaspur in a car. It is further stated that on the way to the hospital, Kirpal Singh succumbed to his injuries. PWs.1 and 2 were medically examined in Civil Hospital, Gurdaspur, and the doctor who examined PWs.1 and 2 sent an intimation to the Police Gurdaspur at about 10.25 p.m. It has come in the prosecution evidence that the distance between the place of the incident and the hospital is about 17 kms. The Police at Gurdaspur Police Station who received the intimation, having come to know that the incident in question had taken place within the territorial jurisdiction of Sadar Police Station Pathankot sent intimation to the said Pathankot Police Station and Ram Dass, ASI of the Pathankot Police Station travelled to the hospital in Gurdaspur which is about 40 kms. away from the Pathankot Police Station and reached the hospital at about 9.15 a.m. on 6.5.1990 and he then recorded the statements of injured witnesses and registered an FIR and after investigation filed the charge sheet as against the named accused and the trial court as stated above in the course of trial included three more persons in the array of accused.

5. The prosecution in support o

Click Here to Read the rest of this document

2003 Supreme(SC) 563

Cases Referred (2)