IMPORTANT POINT
The court upheld the conviction of three appellants for murder, emphasizing the credibility of eyewitnesses and the established motive, while acquitting two due to insufficient evidence.

JUDGMENT :

Arvind Singh Sangwan, J.

1. All these four appeals are preferred against the judgment of conviction dated 27.09.2018, passed by VIth Additional District and Sessions Judge, Fatehpur in S.T. No. 257 of 2014 (State Vs. Himanshu Soni and others) vide which the appellants, Ambika Soni, Pammu Soni, Himanshu Soni, Nandu Singh and Pappu Soni, were held guilty of offence punishable under Sections 147, 148, 302/149, and 506 of I.P.C. as well as the order of sentence of the same date vide which all the accused-appellants were awarded life sentence along with fine of Rs. 50,000/- each under Section 302/149. In case of non-payment of fine, further they were directed to undergo imprisonment of one year. Under Section 147, they were sentenced to one year of imprisonment, under Section 148 for two years with fine of Rs.1000/- each, under Section 506, the accused-appellants were sentenced to one year of imprisonment with fine of Rs.1000/- each. Appellant-Ambika Soni was also convicted under section 504 and sentenced for six months of imprisonment. All the sentences were directed to run concurrently.

2. Heard Sri. G.S. Chaturvedi, learned Senior Counsel and Sri Rajiv Lochan Shukla, learned counsel for the appellants, Sri Vikas Singh, learned counsel for the informant, and Sri A.M. Mulla, learned AGA for the State.

3. The Trial Court’s record is received and paper books are ready. With the assistance of learned counsel for the parties, the entire evidence is re-scrutinized and re-appreciated.

4. Brief facts as per the information given to the police vide complaint (Ex.Ka-1) read as under:

5. On registration of the F.I.R., the police started investigation.

6. During investigation, another complaint was given by the informant-Rakesh Kumar, Ex. Ka-2, which read as under:-

7. Vide this complaint, two additional accused namely, Pappu Soni and Vimal Soni were also nominated. Apart from this, a knife injury was also added to the victim. The victim died on 4.4.2014 and the information was given by the informant to the police vide Ex.Ka-3. During the investigation, the police arrested the accused persons, effected the recovery of a chapad (weapon used for cutting meat etc.), recovered the bloodstained earth and other articles from the spot. The chapad and other articles were sent to Forensic Science Laboratory, Lucknow for seeking a report. The Panchayatnama was prepared and the postmortem of the dead body got conducted. The Cause of death was declared as coma due to ante mortem injuries. The police, on completion of investigation, submitted report before the trial court. The case was committed to the Court of Sessions and the charges were framed under Section 302/149, 147, 148, 504 & 506 of IPC vide order dated 8.10.2014. The accused did not plead guilty and claimed trial.

8. In prosecution evidence, Rakesh Kumar (PW-1) stated that he knew the accused, Himanshu Soni, Ambika Soni, Pammu Soni, Vimal Soni, Nandu and Pappu Soni previously. He stated that prosecution qua Vimal Soni was dropped by the police and he was not present in the Court. This witness stated that on 27.3.2014, at about 6.30 PM, his father-Amar Nath (deceased) was present on his shop situated near Bank of Baroda and was selling utensils. All the above named accused came, Himanshu Soni was carrying chapad and Nandu was carrying a knife, and raised a voice that Amarnath be killed as by opening a jewellery shop, he was alluring their customers which affected the business of the accused. On this, Ambika Soni, Pappu Soni, Pammu Soni and Vimal Soni caught hold of hands and feet of Amarnath and Himanshu Soni with a chapad and Nandu Singh with knife caused multiple injuries on the head, ear, eye, nose and jaw of his father. In the meantime, his brother-Ramesh and Umesh sitting on the jewellery shop and PW-1 from his utensils shop ran towards the spot. Accused persons, by extending threat and deeming that his father has died, ran away from the spot. It is further stated that they took their fa