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High Court Of Madhya Pradesh
P. C. Pathak, S. K. Chawla
THE STATE OF M.P. - Appellant
Versus
JAGDISH - Respondents
Criminal Appeal 949 Of 1990
Decided On : 11/27/1990
(ii) FIRST INFORMATION REPORT What constitutes a - where messages are transmitted between Police Officers inter se, the object and purpose in transmitting the message must be ascertained before any message is labelled as F.I.R. - If the object was to narrate the circumstances of a crime, with a view that the receiving Police Officer might proceed to investigate thereon, the message would be F.I.R. - But if the message sent was cryptic because the object was merely to seek instructions from higher Police Officers or to send direction for the police force to reach the place of occurrence immediately, the message would not be F.I.R.
Held: In the present case, the purpose of sending the message EX. D-6 was only to see that C.I. was immediately fetched from Jabalpur and to see that the Police force was immediately rushed to the spot of the occurrence. The Reserve Inspector who gave the message could not naturally be interested at that time in telling in great detail about the circumstances of the crime with a view that accurate record of the information could be prepared. His purpose at that time could be, without wasting any words, to give directions to see that Police Officer out of Head-quarter (C.I. Police) was brought back immediately and meanwhile the police force was sent to the place of the occurrence. The purpose of sending wireless message in EX.D-II was also somewhat similar. The object of sending that message was that S.O. of the concerned Police Station was immediately informed and reached the place of the occurrence. Considering the purpose for which the messages in EX.D-6 & Ex .D-II were sent and because of the fact that for that reason the messages were bound to be, and were infact, cryptic, neither of them could constitute F.I.R. In those circumstances, the information, which was recorded by C.I. Police Shri Chhagan Dave (P.W.-l7) or Narsinghpur Police Station on reaching the place of occurrence from oral account given by Puna Bai (P.W.-6), i.e. Dehati Nalishi Ex.P-34, was the real F.I.R. (Para 13)
(iii) Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 Section 374(2) r/w 368 - Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Sections 302/149 & 302/34 - Eight persons were convicted for the offence u/s 3021 149 - Appeal - Death reference - P.W.6 and P.W.11, widows of the two of the five persons killed were natural witnesses of the occurrence - They lived in a house close to the place of the incident - They were found to have improved their story during the course of investigation to implicate additionally eleven persons. However, their evidence after careful and cautious scrutiny, deserves to be accepted atleast to the extent that appellants 1 and 2 had participated in the assault - Recovery of broken handle of Ballam found to be lying at the spot from appellant No.1 - Injury sustained by appellant No.2 at the time of the incident - Plea of self defence raised by appellant No.1 - Injury sustained by P.W.6 at the commencement of the incident, which was caused to her, on her evidence by appellant No.2 - No proper evidence as to the origin of tile quarrel - It was not proper to award extreme penalty of death sentence - Convictions of appellants 1 & 2 are altered to offences u/s 302 r/ws 34 - Conviction of other appellants is set aside. (Paras 27 to 29)
Result - Appeal partly allowed.
( 1 ) THIS Order shall also be read in Death Reference 2/90.
( 2 ) THE order is being passed by us in the circumstances briefly set-out here. An incident is alleged to have taken place in village Kachhwa P. S. Mungwani District Narsinghpur on 16-21988 between 10. 30 A. M. to 11. 00 A. M. in which five persons; namely, two brothers named Rewa Ram and Balkishan, their parents Harlal and Kesharbai and one of their relations named Tarachand were done to death.
( 3 ) THE prosecution examined as eye witnesses widows of the two brothers; namely, Punabai (P. W. 6) who is widow of deceased Rewa Ram and Mohanbai (P. W. 11) who is widow of deceased Balkishan. Two more alleged eye witnesses were examined, namely, Hakko (P. W. 7) who is a resident of village Barhatta and one Ramji (P. W. 12) who is resident of village Bedu. A telephonic information about the incident was given to Reserve Police Lines Narsinghpur by one Shyamlal, a retired Head Constable living in the village of the incident. Shyamlal was also cited by the prosecution as an eye witness, but during trial he was given up on the ground of having been won over by the defence. The defence also cited him as their witness but later submitted an application for deleting his name from the list of defence witnesses. As a result, Shyamlal was not examined as a witness on behalf of either party in the Sessions Court.
( 4 ) IT will be pertinent to mention here that Punabai (P. W. 6) in Dehati Nalshi Ex. P. 34, which is claimed to be the F. I. R. by the prosecution, named all the eight appellants of this appeal as the assailants but none others. Her police statement as also the police statement of Mohanbai (P. W. 11) was recorded twice. In the first police statement said to have been taken on the very date of incident, i. e. 16-2-1988, they named those very eight persons who are appellants here. These police-statements were initially suppressed by the prosecution and it was after great effort on the part of the defence that their copies were supplied to the defence on the order of the Sessions Judge passed well before the evidence started. In the second police-statement of these witnesses, said to have been recorded on 20-2-1988, i. e. , 4 days after the incident, they implicated 19 persons, including the eight appellants of this appeal, as the assailants. The copies of these policestatements were readily supplied by the prosecution 10 he accused persons during committal proceedings.
( 5 ) THE prosecution put up challan against all the 19 persons. One of them was discharged by the Sessions Judge. 10 more persons were acquitted after the conclusion of the trial, mainly on the ground of their possible false implication at a subsequent stage. Only the eight persons initially named were convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of the offence under Sections 302/149, LP. C and other kindered offences. They have all been sentenced to death subject to confirmation by the High Court. This explains the present appeal by the eight persons and death, reference made against them by the Sessions Judge.
( 6 ) IT will also be pertinent to mention here that the defence got one telephonic message, Ex-D-6, and one wire-less message, Ex. D-l1, proved. The telephonic message, Ex. D-6, mentions the name of no culprit That merdy states that murders of Murias (the caste 10 which the deceased partly belonged) had taken place in village Kachhwa, which is the village of the occurrence. The wireless message, Ex. D-ll, was purportedly received by Mungwani Police Station from Reserve Police Lines Narsinghpur and it names only two of the appellants, i. e. appellants 1 and 2, Jagdish and Dhannu as the culprits responsible for the incident.
( 7 ) THE learned Sessions Judge Narsinghpur disbelieved the evidence of two alleged eye witnesses Hakkoo (P. W. 7) and Ramji (P. W. 12) living in outside villages whose names were not even mentioned in Dehati Nalshi Ex. P-34. But partly relying on the evidence of the
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