The prosecution must establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt; failure to prove clear connections in poisoning cases led to acquittal.

JUDGMENT :

Rajani Dubey J.

1. Since both the appeals involve common judgment of conviction and order of sentence, therefore, the same have been clubbed together, heard together and are being disposed of by a common order.

2. The present appeals are directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 22.12.2016 passed by the learned 2^nd Upper Session Judge, Bilaspur (C.G.) in ST No.34/2018, whereby the appellants have been convicted under Sections 148/149, 328/149 and 302/149 of IPC and sentenced to undergo RI for 1 year, RI for 5 years and life imprisonment, respectively, with default stipulations.

3. The prosecution case, in brief, is that on 04.12.2017, the complainant made oral complaint to the Police Station Kota against the appellants that his father Malikram had obtained Rs.20,000/- from the appellant Bhan Singh for execution of sale of land and the said amount was not returned by his father to the appellant Bhan Singh, due to which there was some dispute between his father and appellant no.1 and the appellants committed marpeet with his father Malikram and Malikram was poured poison by the appellant Bhan Singh and thereafter the appellants ran away from the spot and Malikram was admitted in Kota Hospital, from where he was referred to CIMS Hospital and thereafter died during treatment. On the basis of complaint made by the complainant, police registered the case against the appellants and they were arrested. After investigation, a charge sheet was filed before the concern Magistrate. On the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution and material available on record, learned trial court convicted the accused/appellants, as mentioned in para 1 of the judgment.

4. Learned counsel for the appellants jointly submit that the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law and material available on record. There are material omissions and contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses. The learned Trial Court has not considered that no internal or external injury was found on the body of the deceased. The learned Trial Court has also not considered the statements of PW-3 & PW-4, who clearly stated that the deceased was consuming liquor at the time of the incident and on a trivial issue, a dispute arose between the deceased and the appellants, out of which a sudden fight took place, in which the deceased sustained some injuries, thereafter he died during treatment, but all these aspects of the matter have not been considered by the learned Trial Court and it wrongly convicted the appellants. Therefore, the appeals deserve to be allowed. Reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for the appellants on the judgments rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matters of Sandeep Kumar and others vs State of Uttarakhand , reported (2022) 14 SCC 544, Sonali Mukherjee vs Union of India , reported in (2010) 15 SCC 25, Allarakha Habib Memon and others vs State of Gujarat reported in (2024) 9 SCC 546 , Nand Lal and others vs State of Chhattisgarh reported in (2023) 10 SCC 470 . Meharaj Singh vs State of U.P. reported in (1994) 5 SCC 188 , Sekaran vs State of Tamil Nadu reported in (2024) 2 SCC 176 , Kailash Gour and others vs State of Assam reported in (2012) 2 SCC 34, Ramesh Baburao Devaskar and others vs State of Maharashtra reported in (2007) 13 SCC 501 and in the matter of Ramesh Baburao Devaskar