Indian Penal Code, 1860 – Sections 302, 504 – Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – Section 313 – On date of incident, there was Tilak Ceremony of son of informant, wherein his guests had come – His elder son deceased went to invite the guests for dinner who were staying in neighbor house –informant and his brother were sitting on Chabutara in front of their house – When deceased reached to electric pole near house accused came with his licensee double barrel gun and said using abusive language that "have you gone mad as you have not invited us in the Tilak" – Accused-appellant fired on deceased by his licensee double barrel gun in order to cause death –FIR was Lodged –Trial court has passed impugned judgment convicting and sentencing accused appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC – Held, Court find that delay in lodging FIR is natural in facts and circumstances of case and well explained –Defence version of ceremonial firing though not based on any evidence on record, indicates acceptance on the part of accused-appellant that the deceased sustained firearm injury which is further proved by medical and postmortem report – Entry wound was found of very close range on the stomach of the deceased which is certainly vital part of body – The doctor conducting postmortem has stated that four pellets were recovered from the dead body and the antemortem injury found on the body of deceased was sufficient to cause death – Four eyewitnesses whose presence near the place of occurrence has been found to be natural have proved the prosecution case and their testimonies find support from the dying declaration of the deceased – There is no contradiction, improvement or embellishment in their ocular account on any material aspect such as time, date, place and manner of occurrence and the eyewitnesses are trustworthy and spontaneous in their narration of the incident –Court find that there is no perversity or illegality in the impugned judgment and sentence – The Criminal Appeal is liable to be dismissed – Criminal Appeal dismissed. (Paras 76, 77).

Facts of Case

On date of incident, there was Tilak Ceremony of son of informant, wherein his guests had come – His elder son deceased went to invite the guests for dinner who were staying in neighbor house –informant and his brother were sitting on Chabutara in front of their house – When deceased reached to electric pole near house accused came with his licensee double barrel gun and said using abusive language that "have you gone mad as you have not invited us in the Tilak" – Accused-appellant fired on deceased by his licensee double barrel gun in order to cause death –FIR was Lodged –Trial court has passed impugned judgment convicting and sentencing accused appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC.

Findings of Court

Court find that delay in lodging FIR is natural in facts and circumstances of case and well explained –Defence version of ceremonial firing though not based on any evidence on record, indicates acceptance on the part of accused-appellant that the deceased sustained firearm injury which is further proved by medical and postmortem report – Entry wound was found of very close range on the stomach of the deceased which is certainly vital part of body – The doctor conducting postmortem has stated that four pellets were recovered from the dead body and the antemortem injury found on the body of deceased was sufficient to cause death – Four eyewitnesses whose presence near the place of occurrence has been found to be natural have proved the prosecution case and their testimonies find support from the dying declaration of the deceased – There is no contradiction, improvement or embellishment in their ocular account on any material aspect such as time, date, place and manner of occurrence and the eyewitnesses are trustworthy and spontaneous in their narration of the incident –Court find that there is no perversity or illegality in the impugned judgment and sentence – The Criminal Appeal is liable to be dismissed.

Result: Criminal Appeal dismissed.