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2003(1) Crimes 195 (SC)
Supreme Court of India
(From Madras High Court)
S.N. Variava & B.N. Agrawal, JJ.
Samikannu & Anr. —Appellants
versus
State of Tamil Nadu —Respondent
Criminal Appeal No. 347 of 2002
Decided on 3-12-2002
For the Appellants :G. Krishnan, Sr. Advocate, V.J. Francis, P.L. Jose and A. Radhakrishnan, Advocates.
For the Respondent:Ram Pal Roy and Mrs. Revathy Raghavan, Advocates.
Important point
There is no infirmity in reasonings of the two courts below on all the submissions made on behalf of appellants and as such no ground is made out warranting interference by the Apex Court in this appeal.
Headnote:Appeal against concurrent reasonings of Courts below—Submissions of delay in lodging FIR, concocted recording of statement of informant—Post mortem report reflecting doubt on occurrence—Interested witnesses—Considered by Courts below and rejected—Whether rightly? (Yes)—Result—Appeal dismissed—(IPC 1860—Sections 302/34, 148 and 324 r/w 34).
Held : Having perused the judgment rendered by the trial court and affirmed by the High Court, we are of the opinion that both the courts have considered all the submissions made on behalf of the appellants in great detail and the same having been rejected, they have been rightly found guilty. We do not find any infirmity in reasonings of the two courts below, as such no ground is made out warranting interference by this Court. In the result, the appeal fails and the same is dismissed. (Paras 8 and 9)
Judgment
B.N. Agrawal, J.—The two appellants, namely, Samikannu and Krishnan, along with accused Nos. 3 - Koonan @ Manikandan and 5 - Ayyakkannu were convicted by the trial court under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. The appellants were further convicted under Sections 148 and 324 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code and each of them was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and two years respectively for the aforesaid offences. The sentences were, however, directed to run concurrently. The other six accused persons, namely, Senthikumar (A2), Manickam (A4), Thangavelu (A6), Palanimuthu (A8), Thangavele (A9) and Naladi (A10) were convicted under Section 302/149 of the Penal Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. Accused No. 2 was further convicted under Section 323 of the Penal Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months. Accused No. 11 was acquitted by the trial Court. On appeal being preferred by all the convicted accused persons, conviction and sentence of the appellants herein under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code have been confirmed by the High Court whereas their convictions and sentences under Section 148 and Section 324 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code have been set aside. So far as accused No. 2 is concerned, his conviction under Section 323 of the Penal Code has been confirmed. However, the conviction and sentence of this accused under Section 302/149 has been set aside. So far as the other accused persons are concerned, they have been acquitted of all the charges levelled against them by the High Court.
2. The prosecution case is that on 4.2.1988 at about 11 p.m. when PW 1 - Thirumathi Sundarambal, PW 3 - Venkatasamy, PW 4- Govindaraj and Kuppusamy were in their field hut in Village Govindapalayam they heard alarm being raised by PW 5 - Sekar, PW 6 - Durai and two others who had gone to work in the field belonging to the family of PW 1. Upon hearing the same, Kuppusamy along with PWs 1, 3 and 4 proceeded to the field where PWs 5 and 6 were working and when they were crossing through the field of one Janakiramam Chettiar they were way laid by the accused persons, including the appellants. A5 is said to have inflicted a stab injury with knife on the head of Kuppusamy while Appellant No. 2 stabbed Kuppusamy with a bill hook. At that time, A1 and A3 assaulted Kuppusamy with iron rods and thereafter accused Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 assaulted him with sticks as a result of which he fell down on the ground and succumed to the injuries. In the same transaction, PW 3 was assaulted by accused Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 with their respective weapons and PW 4 was assaulted by accused Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 11. When PW 1 came near the injured persons, the accused persons filed away. PW 1 along with wife of PW 3 and her sister-in-law took the injured persons to the hut belonging to PW 7, who was working in the field of Janakiramam Chettiar. When they were sitting in front of the hut of PW 7, PWs 5 and 6 came there with injured and all of them remained in the hut of PW 7 during night. As PW 1 was scared during night, she went to PW 11 - Village Administrative Officer in the next morning at 8 O’clock and narrated the incident to him who recorded her statement which was forwarded to the concerned police station on the basis of which first information report was drawn up on the same day at 9.45 a.m. against the 11 accused persons.
3. The police after registering the case took up investigation and on completion thereof submitted chargesheet against all the 11 accused persons on receipt whereof cognizance was taken and the accused persons were committed to the Court of Sessions to face trial.
4. Defence of the accused persons was that they were innocent and were falsely implicated in the case on hand. According to them no occurrence, as alleged, ha
