Point of Law: Section 141 of IPC states that an “unlawful assembly” is an assembly of five or more persons, if their common object is to commit mischief, criminal trespass or any other offence.

JUDGMENT :

Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.

1. Since both of these criminal appeals have arisen out of impugned judgment dated 27/05/2016 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge Pratappur, Distt. Surajpur in Sessions Trial No. 27/2015, therefore, they have been clubbed together, heard together and are being decided by this common judgment.

2. The six appellants in Criminal Appeal No. 827/2016 namely Kamleshwar Painkra (A-1), Kripashankar Painkra (A-2), Jagendra Kumar (A-3), Shivlal Gond (A-4), Baldev (A-7) and Dhanushdhari (A-8) as well as the two appellants in Criminal Appeal No. 1133/2016 namely Shyam Painkra (A35) and Ramkumar Painkra (A-6); all have preferred these appeals under Section 374(2) of CrPC calling in question the validity, legality and correctness of the judgment impugned whereby each one of them have been convicted and sentenced as under :-

Prosecution case :-

3. Case of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 11/06/2015 in between 11PM-12AM, the eight appellants herein along with two other co-accused persons namely Smt. Shanti and Smt. Abha Painkra constituted an unlawful assembly in the forest range of Chitkabahra at Village Gotgaon with the intention of obstructing Forester Motilal Kushwaha (deceased), Forester Hemlal Sahu (P.W.-7), Beat Guard Sohan (P.W.-10) and Forest Guard Jaikaran (P.W.-11) from performing governmental work and assaulted them with deadly and dangerous weapons and in furtherance of their common intention, caused the death of Motilal Kushwaha and injured Hemlal Sahu (P.W.-7), Sohan (P.W.-10) and Jaikaran (P.W.-11) and thereby, committed the aforesaid offences.

4. Further case of the prosecution is that on 11/06/2015 at about 10 PM, deceased Motilal Kushwaha made a call to Hemlal Sahu (P.W.-7) and informed him that he had received the information that wood was being stolen at forest range Chitkabahra and directed him to go to the place of the incident along with barrier guard Jaikaran (P.W.-11). As directed, when Hemlal Sahu (P.W.-7) and barrier guard Jaikaran (P.W.-11) went to the Chitkabahra forest range, they heard the sound of wood being unloaded from the tractor and they immediately informed about this to Circle Incharge deceased Motilal Kushwaha. After being informed, deceased Motilal Kushwaha reached the spot along with beat guard Sohan (P.W.-10) and when all of them went near the courtyard of Kamleshwar Painkra (A-1), they found that Kamleshwar Painkra (A-1), Kripashankar Painkra (A-2) and Jagendra (A-3) were unloading wood from a tractor bearing registration No. CG 15-AI/4322. Upon this, deceased Motilal Kushwaha asked them to again reload the tractor with illegal wood and send it to the Range Office but Kamleshwar Painkra (A-1) replied that he also worked in Forest Department and he would see who takes the wood to Range Office. Thereafter, deceased Motilal Kushwaha informed about the incident to the Ranger and after telling them that action will be taken against them in the morning, he started going back but at that time, Kamleshwar Painkra (A-2) and Jagendra (A-3) came back with 8-10 people along with them and while abusing and obstructing deceased Motilal Kushwaha from performing their governmental duties, with the intention of causing death, assaulted him with clubs and murdered him. The accused persons also assaulted Sohan (P.W.-10) and Jaikaran (P.W.-11) with clubs and injured them.

5. The said incident was reported at Pratappur Police Station wherein merg was registered at the instance