The Court emphasized the necessity of credible evidence and clear establishment of roles in convictions under shared assembly offenses.

(Per: HONOURABLE JUSTICE SMT. SONI SHRIVASTAVA)

5 17-12-2025 Heard the learned counsel for the appellants of the aforesaid two appeals, the learned counsel appearing for the informant as also the learned Additional Public Prosecutors appearing for the State.

2. The aforesaid appeals have been preferred against the same judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 06.12.2024 and 11.12.2024 respectively, passed by the Ld. District and Additional Sessions Judge- XII, Saran at Chapra in Sessions Trial No. 559 of 2019 (arising out of Kopa P.S. Case No. 84 of 2019), whereby and whereunder the appellants have been convicted under Sections 148 , 323, 302/149 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as the ‘IPC’) and they have been directed to undergo Imprisonment for life u/s 302 IPC with a fine of Rs. 20,000/-. The appellants have further been sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for two years under Section 148 IPC with a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each. The appellants have also been sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for six months with a fine of Rs. 500/- each under Section 323 IPC. In case of default in payment of the fine, the appellants have been directed to further undergo simple imprisonment for six months. All the sentences have been directed to run concurrently.

3. The records of these appeals have been placed before this court to consider the prayer of the appellant of the first case [Cr. Appeal (DB) No. 71 of 2025] as also that of the appellants No. 1 & 2 of the second case (Cr. Appeal (DB) No. 177 of 2025) for suspension of their sentence and release on bail during the pendency of the appeals.

4. The short facts of the case, according to the fardbeyan of the informant Nagendra Sharma (PW 5) is that on 10-06-2019 at 07:15 p.m. the informant was present at his bathan and the persons of other community were offering Namaz at the mosque and after offering Namaz altogether nineteen accused persons went towards the backside of the mosque, whereafter they had some discussion there and then Naushad, Badshah and Rabul Miya arrived at the house of the informant and started hurling abuses at him as well as his family members. On protest, they started assaulting the informant. Thereafter, all the accused persons arrived at the house of the informant and assaulted him. When informant’s daughter Rinku Kumari, wife Chinta Devi, Rina Devi, Awadhesh Kumar, Ramesh Kumar and Shrikant Kumar came to rescue the informant, the said accused persons assaulted them too. Thereafter, the villagers mediated and defused the situation as also arranged a vehicle to send the injured for treatment. After about 15 minutes, Randhir Sharma arrived from a function and while he was parking his motorcycle at the room, accused Naushad, Samsher, Ali Sher, Jaka, Nazir, Guddu Ansari and Azad Miya, who were already present and Jaka, nazir, Guddu and Azad held him and upon their instigation; Naushad, Shamsher and Ali Sher took out knives from their pockets and assaulted the deceased indiscriminately on his stomach and back resulting in causing injuries to him. The Informant later came to know that the injured Randhir Sharma succumbed to his injuries and died on the way to the hospital. The informant had lastly alleged that the genesis of the occurrence is a prior land dispute regarding construction of a wall between the informant and Abbas. On the basis of the said fardbeyan of the Informant, the police had registered an F.I.R bearing Kopa P.S. Case No. 84 of 2019 on 10-06-2019 under sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 324, 307, 302, 504 of the I.P.C against the 19 named accused persons including the present appellants.

5. The learned counsel for the appellants of the aforesaid two appeals have jointly submitted that the prosecution has not come forward with the correct picture of the entire incident and the prosecution witnesses have tried to give an eye witness account of the incident while they have actually not witnessed the occurrence in as much as,