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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
21st March 1952
FAZL ALI AND BOSE JJ.
Lachhman Singh and others - Appellants
Versus
The State.
Criminal Appeal No. 22 of 1950.
Advocates appeared
Shri Jai Gopal Sethi, Senior Advocate (Shri R. L. Kohli, Advocate with him), instructed by Shri R. N. Sachthey, Agent - for Appellants; Shri Gopal Singh Advocate, instructed by Shri P. A. Mehta, Agent-for the State.
Held: It is not the function of the Supreme Court to re-assess evidence and an argument on a point of fact which did not prevail with the courts below cannot avail the appellants in the Supreme Court. - Section 423-Appreciation of evidence-Alteration ill appeal n conviction.
Held : (I) The High Court came to the conclusion that in all the circumstances of the case it would be proper not to rely upon the oral evidence implicating particular accused unless there is some circumstantial evidence to support it. "Proceeding upon the principles laid down by this court circumscribing the scope of a criminal appeal after the case has been sifted by the trial court and the High Court, it seems to us that the question involved in the present appeal is a short and simple one. According to our reading of the judgment of the High Court, the learned Judges who dealt with the case, did not condemn the oral evidence outright, but as a matter of prudence and caution, they decided not to convict an accused person unless there were some circumstances to lend support to the evidence of the eye witness with regard to him. It is quite clear on reading the judgment that the corroboration which the learned Judges required to satisfy themselves, was not that kind of corroboration which one requires in
1.A.I.R. 1934 P.C. 227.
2.A.I.R. 1945 P.C. 151.
the case of the evidence or an approver or an accomplice, but corroboration by some circumstances which would lend assurance to the evidence before them and satisfy them that the particular accused persons were really concerned in the murder of the deceased. Judged by this standard, which it was open to them to prescribe, it seems to us that the case of each of the appellants clearly fell within the rule which they had laid down for their own guidance."
(2) Where the facts of a case are such that the accused could have been charged alternatively, either under S. 302 read with S. 149 or under S. 302 read with S. 34, the conviction of the accused under S. 302 read with S. 149 can be altered by the High Court in appeal to one under S. 302 read with S. 34, upon the acquittal of the other accused persons. - Section 27-Several accused giving information-Initial pointing out by one of the accused -Admissibility of discoveries.
Held: "According to the prosecution, all the three accused namely, Katha Singh, Massa Singh and Swaran Singh were interrogated by the police on the morning of 19.12.48 and they made certain statements which were duly recorded by the police. In these statements, it was disclosed that the dead bodies were thrown in the Sakinala. Thereafter, the police party with the three accused went to Sakinala where each of them pointed out a place where different parts of the dead bodies were discovered.
"The learned counsel for the appellants cited a number of rulings in which S. 27 has been construed to mean that it is only the information which is first given that is admissible and once a fact has been discovered in consequence of information received from a person accused of an offence, it cannot be said to be rediscovered in consequence of information received from another accused person. For the purpose of this appeal it is sufficient to state that even if the argument put forward on behalf of the appellants, which apparently found favour with the High Court, is correct, the discoveries made at the instance of Swaran Singh cannot be ruled out of consideration. It may be that several of the accused gave information to the police that the dead bodies could be recover9d in the Sakinala, which is a stream running over several miles, but such an indefinite information could not lead to any discovery unless the accused followed it up by conducting the police to the actual spot where parts of the two bodies were recovered. From the evidence of the head-constable as well as that of Bahadur Singh, it is quite clear that Swaran Singh led the police via Salimpura to a particular spot on Sakinala, and it was at his instance that blood stained earth was recovered from a place outside the village, and he also pointed out the trunk of the body of Darshan Singh. The learned judges of the High Court were satisfied, as appears from their judgment, that his was "the initial pointing out" and therefore the case was covered even by the rule which according to the counsel for the appellants, is the rule to be applied in the present case. (per Fazl Ali J.)
Judgment
Fazl Ali, J. - The three appellants were tried by the Additional Sessions Judge at Amritsar and found guilty of having murdered two persons named Darshan Singh and Achhar Singh and sentenced to transportation for life. The High Court of Punjab upheld their conviction and sentence and granted them a certificate under Art. 134 (1) (c) of the Constitution that the case is a fit one for appeal to this Court. Hence this appeal
2. The facts of the case may be briefly stated as follows On the evening of 16-12-1948, a little before sunset, Achhar Singh, one of the murdered persons went to the house of one Inder Singh in village Dalam for getting paddy husked. Achhar Singh s brother, Darshan Singh, who was working as a driver at Amritsar. came to Dalam from Amritsar the same evening, and on coming to know from his father that Achhar Singh had gone to Inder Singh s house, he also went there. While the two brothers were returning home, they were attacked by the three appellants and two of their relatives in a lane adjoining Inder Singh s house. The five assailants. who were armed with deadly weapons, inflicted a number of injuries on the two victims, as a result of which they died then and there After the murder, the appellants and their companions tied the two dead bodies in two kheses (wrappers) and took them to village Saleempura where two other persons named Ajib Singh and Banta Singh, joined them, and the dead bodies after being dismembered were thrown into a stream known as Sakinala at a place about five miles from village Dalam.
Bala Singh father of the deceased persons, who was one of the persons who claims to have witnessed the occurrence, did not leave the village at night on account of fear, but he started about two hours before sunrise on the next morning and lodged the first information report at 10 A. M. at the nearest police station. A police officer arrived in village Dalam shortly afterwards, and, after investigation, a charge-sheet was submitted against seven persons including the present appellants. At the trial, five of the accused were charged with offences under S. 302 read with S. 149 and under S. 201 read with S. 149 Penal Code, and the remaining two accused were charged with the offence under S. 201 read with S. 149 of that Code. The learned Judge who tried the accused, convicted the appellants and two other persons under S. 302 read with S. 149, Penal Code and sentenced them to transportation for life, and convicted Ajaib Singh under S. 201 read with S. 149 and sentenced him to three years R. I. Banta Singh, accused, was acquitted. On appeal the Punjab High Court upheld the conviction of the present appellants and acquitted the remaining three persons.
3. Before proceeding to discuss the evidence in the case, it is necessary to refer to what has been described as the motive for the murder. It appears that in June, 1947, Natha Singh, father of the third appellant, Swaran Singh, was murdered, and Darshan Singh and Achhar Singh, the two murdered persons in the case before us, and their third brother, Sulakhan Singh, were charged with the murder of that person. As a result of the trial. Darshan Singh was acquitted and Achhar Singh was sentenced to 11/2 years R. I., while Sulakhan Singh was sentenced to 7 years R. I. The judgment of the Sessions Judge in that case was delivered shortly before the date of the present occurrence, and it is common ground that Achhar Singh had been released on bail by the appellate Court and was at large at that time.
It is said that the appellants and their relatives felt aggrieved by the acquittal of Darshan Singh and by the light sentence passed on Achhar Singh. And therefore committed this murder in a spirit of frustration and revenge. It was conceded before us by the learned counsel for the appellants that the facts stated above constituted a strong motive for the murder, but he also contended that they constituted an equally strong motive for the appellants being falsely impli
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