The court emphasized the principle of parity in sentencing, ensuring similar roles in crime led to aligned convictions, and mandated adherence to the statutory requirements for probation.

JUDGMENT :

(PER : HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE ILESH J. VORA)

1. Since, the facts of the case and issue involved in captioned appeals are identical and arise out of the same judgment, both the appeals are taken up together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

2. The conviction appeal (Criminal Appeal No.2072 of 2009) is filed by the accused herein against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 30.09.2009 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Nadiad, Kheda in Sessions Case No.80 of 2007, whereby the appellants – original accused no.A1 to A5, A7, A10, A11 and A12 came to be convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 323 , 324 and 326 of the IPC and they were sentenced as under:

3. The appeal (Criminal Appeal No.2479 of 2009) under Section 377 of the Cr.P.C. is filed by the State against the aforesaid sentence on the ground of its inadequacy.

4. Facts and circumstances giving rise to file these appeals are as follows:

4.1 On 10.12.2006, there was a Gram Panchayat election for the post of Sarpanch at Village: Kherol, Tal: Virpur, Dist: Kheda. The complainant PW.1 and her family members returned back after casting their votes and they were doing their respective work in the farm. At about 6:00 p.m., the accused, in all 24 persons, came to house of PW.1, armed with deadly weapons like iron pipes, sticks and sickle and raised the dispute with PW.7 Fulsinh that why they did not caste their votes to Kalusinh Parmar of Village: Rozai who was candidate of Sarpanch and started hurled abusive and all of a sudden, they made an assault on Fulsinh, Bhemsinh, Abhesinh, Narvatsinh, Sarojben and others. In the said incident, according to prosecution case, the A1, A2 and A3 caused injuries to the PW.7 Fulsinh with iron pipe, as a result, he suffered head injury and fracture injuries over his legs, whereas, the other accused i.e. A4, A5, A7, A10, A11 and A12 had caused injuries to the witnesses who had suffered grievous hurt. It is further case of the prosecution that, after the incident, the accused had looted the household items and vandalized vehicles parked nearby the place of incident and also caused damages to the roof of the house and water pipeline. The FIR