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2010 Supreme(UK) 103
2010 (2) N.C.C. 178
UTTARAKHAND HIGH COURT
Hon’ble Mr. Justice B.C. Kandpal and Hon’ble Mrs. Justice Nirmal Yadav
Government Appeal No. 190 of 2001
STATE – Appellant
Versus
RANJEET SINGH & 2 ORS. – Respondents
Decided on : 15.03.2010
For the Appellant : Mr. G.S. Sandhu, G.A.
For the Complainant :Mr. Lalit Sharma, Advocate
For the Respondents:Mr. J.S. Virk, Advocate
Headnote:(A) Indian Evidence Act, 1872, Sec. 8 — Murder — Motive for — No quarrel ever took place between the parties w.r.t. land in dispute — Also, accused side never had any grudge against the deceased and had no motive to commit his murder — Through the complainant had motive to falsely implicate the accuseds. (Para 14)
(B) Chance Witness — Unnatural conduct of — Witnesses reaching at the place of incident in search of deceased at the same time — Also seeing accuseds crushing deceased by tractor; then also not saving him — Such conduct of witnesses creates doubt in the prosecution story.
(Paras 17, 18)
(C) Related Witnesses — Presence of witness at the place of occurrence and witnessing the occurrence by them, is also doubtful — Held that the police had summoned the dog squad at the place of occurrence and this fact in itself shows that the actual incident was not seen by any one — And the dog squad was summoned, to make search for the criminals and to get some clue from the spot. (Para 20)
(D) Appreciation of evidence — Medical evidence — According to the prosecution — Accuseds committed murder of the deceased by running tractor over him 2 or 3 times — In inquest report, only two injuries were found on the dead body — But in the post mortem report, 8 injuries were found on the dead body of the deceased — Also, if tractor would have run over the head or the legs of the deceased, the head would have crushed and the bones of legs would have got fractured — In absence of injury of crushing on the body of the deceased — The medical evidence did not support the prosecution case and creates a reasonable doubt. (Para 21)
(E) Practice and Procedure — An appeal from a judgment of acquittal — If two views are reasonably possible — One supporting the acquittal and the other recording a conviction — High Court would not interfere merely because it feels that sitting as a trial court its view would have been one of recording a conviction. (Para 28)
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[Per : Hon’ble B.C. Kandpal, J.]
This Government Appeal, arises out against the judgment and order dated 18.2.1998, passed by Ist Additional Sessions Judge, Nainital, in S.T. No. 368 of 1996, whereby the accused/respondents Ranjeet Singh, Jaswant Singh and Gurmel Singh have been acquitted of the charges U/Ss 147, 302 read with Section 149 I.P.C.
2. The prosecution story, in short, is that accused/respondents and complainant Harmeet Singh are related to each other. Prior to the incident, litigation pertaining to three acres land was going on between Jagjeet Singh, father of the complainant Harmeet Singh, and the accused persons and there was enmity among them in respect of the land. On 25.3.1996 deceased Jagjeet Singh had gone to attend a marriage at the house of his friend Gurmeet Singh in village Ganeshpur. When he did not return home upto 8-9 p.m., then complainant Harmeet Singh, Gurmel Singh, friend of the father of complainant, and Narpal Singh, maternal uncle of the complainant, went in search of his father in a tractor on Bazpur road. When these persons reached on Bazpur road, one kilometer away from their Birha Farm, then they in the red light of the tractor saw that motorcycle of Jagjeet Singh was lying in the field of Chaudhary. They stopped the tractor. They also saw that accused Ranjeet Singh was crushing Jagjeet Singh by tractor in the field of Chaudhary and accused Gurmel Singh and Jaswant Singh were sitting on the Bonnet of the tractor. On account of this incident, Jagjeet Singh died at the spot. The complainant and his companion tried to get down from the tractor so as to save Jagjeet Singh, but accused Ranjeet Singh and his 3-4 associates did not permit them to do so and extended threats to their lives also. Due to the fear of the accused persons, the complainant did not lodge the F.I.R. in the night. On 26.3.1996 at 6.40 A.M. the complainant lodged the F.I.R., Ext. Ka-1, at the police station. On the basis of written F.I.R., chick F.I.R., Ext. Ka-10 was drawn at the police station.
3. The investigation of the case was conducted by Sri Roop Singh Yadav, Station Officer. On 26.3.1996, S.I. P.C. Verma, P.W.5, accompanied the I.O. to the place of occurrence and conducted the inquest on the dead body of the deceased and prepared inquest report, Ext. Ka-2. He also prepared challan laas, Ext. Ka-5, Police Form-35, Ext. Ka-6, sketch dead body, Ext. Ka-7. Thereafter he sealed the dead body and sent it for postmortem. On 26.3.96 the I.O. recorded the statements of Harmeet Singh, complainant and Onkar Singh. He inspected the spot and prepared site-plan, Ext. Ka-10. He took into possession the motorcycle of deceased from the field of Chaudhary, and the memo, Ext. Ka-8 was prepared by P.C. Verma. On 27.3.96 he recorded the statements of Swarn Singh, Gajendra Singh and arrested accused Ranjeet Singh, Jaswant Singh and Gurmel Singh. On 30.3.1996 he recovered the tractor no. 733 from Atma Singh, father of accused Gurmel Singh and prepared its memo Ext. Ka-6.
4. The post mortem on the dead body of deceased Jagjeet Singh was conducted by Dr. S. Ahmad, in L.D. Bhatt Hospital Kashipur on 26.3.1996, at 2 P.M. and he has found the following ante-mortem injuries on his person :-
1. Lacerate wound 4 cm x .15 cm x scalp deep over forehead, 5 cm above the left eye brow.
2. Lacerated wound 13 cm x 10 cm x bone deep over right side head involving also right side forehead and right side face.
3. Abraded contusion 20 cm x 3.5 cm over right side upper part of front of chest and shoulder.
4. Multiple abrasion 22 cm x 8 cm over lower part of front of right side chest and upper part of abdomen.
5. Multiple abrasion 12 cm x 6 cm over upper part of left side abdomen.
6. Abrasion 3 cm x 1 cm over left side chest, 5 cm above the nipple.
7. Abrasion 4 cm x 2 cm over medial side of left thigh, 4 cm above the knee joint.
8. Abrasion 2 cm x 2 cm over front of right knee joint.
In the opinion of the doctor the cause of death was coma, as a res
