The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of Section 34 of the IPC to hold all accused persons responsible for the assault and subsequent death of the deceased.

JUDGMENT :

ABHAY S. WAGHWASE, J.

1. Above four appeals are directed against judgment and order of conviction recorded by the leaned Additional Sessions Judge, Shrirampur in Sessions Case No. 16 of 2015, thereby holding appellants guilty for the offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short “Atrocities Act”) and sentenced them to suffer imprisonment for life and to pay fine as spelt out in the operative part of the impugned judgment and order.

FACTS IN BRIEF GIVING RISE TO SESSIONS CASE

2. On 25-07-2014 at around 03:00 p.m. there was quarrel between deceased Balasaheb and appellant accused Dastgir and in such episode, deceased allegedly slapped Dastgir. Consequently, Dastgir while in company of other accused, issued threat to see Balasaheb in the night. Again there was some quarrel between deceased and accused at around 07:00 p.m. At around 09:00 p.m. deceased left the house informing that he is going for answering call of nature. Informant, maternal aunt of deceased namely Vatsala Vinayak Khude, who had come to house of deceased for dinner, was returning with her husband PW5 Vinayak Rambhau Khude on Motorcycle. When they reached near house of one Bangadiwala, informant and her husband saw accused persons assaulting deceased with Gupti and thereafter fleeing away. PW6 Deoram Bhalerao and PW8 Krishna Londhe, who were present in the vicinity and rushed to the spot on hearing hue and cry raised by the informant, lifted and shifted deceased to Kamgar Hospital, Shrirampur, where he was examined and declared dead. As a result of which, PW3 Vatsala, maternal aunt of deceased lodged report on the strength of which crime was registered.

3. After completing the investigation and all formalities, accused persons came to be charge-sheeted and were made to face trial before learned Additional Sessions Judge, Shrirampur. He conducted trial, heard both the sides and after appreciating the oral and documentary evidence, accepted the case of prosecution as proved and thereby held accused persons guilty and awarded aforesaid punishment. This judgment of conviction dated 23-09-2015 is challenged by way of instant appeals by invoking Section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.).

4. Heard Mr.Joydeep Chatterji, learned Advocate for the appellants, Mr.A.M.Phule, learned APP for respondent no. 1 - State and Mr.R.N.Chavan, learned Advocate for respondent no. 2.

5. Respondent no. 2 i.e. wife of deceased is arraigned as respondent no. 2 here as a result of order of grant of share in the compensation. Learned Advocate for respondent no. 2 submitted that learned trial Judge has rightly considered her entitlement to receive compensation and thereby duly compensated her and he prays that said order should be kept intact.

SUBMISSIONS

On behalf of Appellants:

6. The sum and substance of the argument put-forth by the learned Advocate for the appellants is that, though prosecution claims that there is direct eye witness account, he submitted that it is doubtful as to whether it is so. According to him, prosecution is mainly relying on testimonies of PW3 Vatsala, PW5 Vinayak , PW6 Deoram and PW8 Krishna. He pointed out that PW5 Vinayak and PW3 Vatsala are husband and wife and are uncle and maternal aunt of deceased and therefore, there evidence is not free from bias. Taking us through the evidence of both these witnesses, he would submit that their evidence cannot be said to be consistent or corroborating each other. Infact their evidence suggests that they are got up witnesses. He emphasized that informant PW3 Vatsala spoke about assault with Gupti by only one accused Dastgir and she does not speak of role of other accused persons and moreover only one weapon is recovered by the Investigating Agency which too is not a Gupti rather it is a knife. At the same time, he also took us through the