Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Appellant :Mr. Amit Dhawan, Advocate, Mr. J.S. Bains, Advocate, Mr. R.K. Arya, Advocate
For the Respondent: Mr. Amandeep Singh, DAG, Punjab

JUDGMENT :

Deepak Gupta, J.

This order shall dispose of 03 petitions titled above, as all of them pertain to the same FIR No.188 dated 08.11.2018, under Sections 302, 307, 323, 148 and 149 read with Section 25 of the Arms Act, registered at Police Station Dinanagar, District Gurdaspur.

2. In CRM-M-18018-2021; and CRM-M-5755-2023, petitioners Gurpreet @ Kaka and Davinder Saini, pray for their release on regular bail in the aforesaid FIR; whereas CRM-M-26376-2023 has been filed by the Piara Singh, the complainant of the case for issuing appropriate directions to the Trial Court to conclude the trial expeditiously.

3. Separate status reports in all the three cases have been filed.

4. FIR was lodged on the complaint of Piara Singh, Lambardar (petitioner in CRM-M-26376-2023), resident of Village Magrala, Tehsil Dinanagar, District Gurdaspur, as per which on 07.11.2018, his nephew Sukhwinder Singh (deceased) alongwith his friends Rahul Kumar S/o Sudarshan Kumar, and Suraj Kumar S/o Raj Kumar were standing near Chowk Magrala Road Chungi, Dinanagar. At that time, he (Piara Singh) alongwith his brother Prem Singh was going to Dinanagar to buy some household articles. When they reached a little behind Sukhwinder Singh, when at about 8.45 p.m., Davinder Saini (petitioner in CRM-M-5755-2023) armed with pistol, Kaka (alias Gurpreet -petitioner in CRM-M-18018-2021) armed with pistol; Pankaj Saini, Bunty, Sajan and Ankush all empty handed alongwith one unknown person. They all had come on their motorcycles and while raising lalkara, started abusing Sukhwinder Singh. Davinder Saini and Kaka started firing towards Sukhwinder Singh. As complainant shouted, all the assailants fled away on their motorcycles. Injured Sukhwinder Singh alongwith Rahul Kumar and Suraj Kumar were taken to the hospital, where Sukhwinder Singh was declared brought dead; whereas Rahul Kumar was referred to Amritsar and Suraj Kumar was taken to the Civil Hospital, Gurdaspur by his brother. Piara Singh also disclosed the motive for this occurrence, stating that few days earlier, Jatinder Singh, the brother of deceased Sukhwinder Singh had a scuffle with the aforesaid assailants and that on 17.10.2018, Jatinder Singh had got registered a case at Police Station Taragarh against above persons.

5 .1 During investigation, postmortem of the dead body of Sukhwinder Singh was got conducted. In supplementary statement, complainant Piara Singh also nominated Davinder Singh @ Bhinda and Ankush Mahajan @ Thana to be involved in the crime. Co-accused Sajan, Devinder Singh @ Bhinda, Ankush Mahajan @ Thana and Ankush were arrested from time to time.

5.2 Petitioner - Gurpreet @ Kaka, who had earlier been apprehended in case FIR No.5 dated 08.01.2019, under Arms Act, registered at Police Station Bhogpur, District Jalandhar, was arrested in the present case after obtaining production warrants. Said petitioner admitted to have fired gun shots at Sukhwinder Singh (deceased), Rahul Kumar and Suraj Kumar. As per the petitioner, he had fired 03 gun shots, out of which one hit to Sukhwinder Singh on his chest, other to Rahul Kumar on his abdomen and the third to Suraj Kumar on his right arm biceps. The pistol used in the crime by said petitioner -Gurpreet @ Kaka was recovered in case FIR No.5 dated 08.01.2019 (supra). An application was moved to the Court concerned for obtaining the case property in the present case. However, it was reported by the S.H.O., Police Station Bhogpur that the pistol had already been sent to the FSL. The FSL report was obtained from S.H.O., Police Station Bhogpur, as received in case FIR No.5 dated 08.01.2019 (supra) and it was opined that country-made pistol was in working condition.

5 .3 Status report further reveals that one of the accused, namely, Pankaj Saini as named in the FIR was initially declared innocent, but during trial, he was summoned by the Court under Section 319 Cr.P.C. After completion of investigation, final report under Section 173 Cr.P.C. was filed agains