The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in the case of Nadeem vs State consisting of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani while dismissing criminal appeals upheld Trial Court’s decree and reiterated that a ‘related witness’ cannot be said to be an ‘interested witnes’s merely by virtue of being a relative of the victim.
Facts
The Appellant Nos.1, 2, 3 and 4 (“Appellants”), sharing common intention, caused stab injuries on the body of Manoj (“the deceased”) leading to his death. The injuries were caused with a knife and danda as a vendetta owing to previous enmity and animosity with the deceased. After committing the murder, the appellants absconded from the crime spot. The entire incident was witnessed by PW-4 (Smt. Gudiya w/o Jagbir Singh); and PW-2 (Amit Bhardwaj (neighbour and eyewitness who turned hostile)); who were statedly present with the deceased at the time of the incident.
Procedural History
After registration of the FIR, the crime spot was inspected through the Crime Team whilst photographing the scene of crime from different angles and seizing blood-stained earth samples. The dead body of the deceased was sent for post-mortem. Later, all the Appellants surrendered before the court and were arrested. During interrogation, they made disclosure statements admitting their involvement in the offence. It was opined by Dr. Komal Singh (PW-26) that the cause of death was haemorrhagic shock caused by penetrating injuries to abdominal aorta, omentum and mesentry by sharp edged pointed weapon like knife/chhura etc; all injuries were ante-mortem in nature. The second injury was said to be sufficient by itself to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. Charges were framed to which all the appellants pled not guilty and claimed trial. The Trial Court whilst rejecting the defence set up by the Appellants, convicted them u/s 302/307/34 of IPC.
Contentions Made
Appellant: There is material contradiction in the statements of PW-4 and PW-6 recorded u/s 161 CrPC and the deposition given before the court, wherein at one instance, only Appellant No.1 Nadeem is stated to have wielded the knife, whereas in their deposition before the court it was stated that Appellant No.3 had also wielded the knife and inflicted injury upon the person of PW6. PW-2 Amit Bhardwaj has turned hostile and has not supported the case of the prosecution. No fingerprints were taken from the recovered weapon of offence nor any FSL Test was conducted in that regard to establish the user of the weapon. Appellant nos. 2 and 4 were initially not named in the FIR and have subsequently been falsely implicated in this case. All the Appellants voluntarily surrendered before the trial court within 2 days of the commission of the crime as soon as they received information about the FIR registered against them. This itself is urged to be indicative of the fact that the Appellants did not try to flee the law and have been cooperative throughout the investigation. There are glaring contradictions and material improvements in the testimony of the purported eyewitnesses.
Respondent: All the PWs examined by the prosecution have remained firm and proved the case of prosecution beyond the pale of reasonable doubt. The prosecution has been able to establish its case clearly and categorically; and merely because there are some discrepancies in the testimony of the PWs, that does not take away their clear and unequivocal deposition before the Ld Trial Court; and that the prosecution in law is not required to procure or reproduce a parroted version of the PWs. The eyewitnesses stood their ground during the cross examination and have further corroborated each other on all relevant and material facts and consequently proved the case of the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. Their testimonies also clearly establish the motive behind the crime committed by the Appellants in furtherance of their common intention. It is result of intimidation by the Appellants which terrified PW-2 and other neighbours in the vicinity, thereby discouraging them from testifying against and identifying the Appellants.
Observations of the Court
The Bench, while referring to Vipin Sharma & Ors. v. State and appreciating the distinction between Section 299 and Section 300 of the IPC and in particular, clause (3) of Section 300 thereof , reiterated that for cases to fall within clause (3), it is not necessary that the offender intended to cause death, so long as the death ensues from the intentional bodily injury or injuries sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. It further relied on Virsa Singh v. State of Punjab to reiterate that if the subject injury is intended and is not caused by an accident or otherwise is not unintentional and the injury is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, then the same would fall under Section 300 clause (3) and be punishable under Section 302 of IPC.
Regarding to the submission that Appellant nos. 2 and 4 were initially not named in the FIR and have subsequently been falsely implicated in this case, it was observed that this argument cannot be sustained because an FIR is not required or expected by law to be an encyclopaedia of the offence committed. An FIR by its very nature and nomenclature is only a First Information Report.
Laying a clear distinction in law between a related witness and an interested witness, it reiterated that a related witness cannot be said to be an ‘interested’ witness merely by virtue of being a relative of the victim.
Judgment
It was also observed that the Appellants took the general plea of false implication, and no specific suggestion was put by any of the appellants to the effect to the prosecution witnesses as to why the appellants have been named by PW-6 in the complaint. Further, the Appellants did not produce any cogent evidence in their defence. Therefore, the judgment and the order on sentence were upheld and the present appeals were dismissed.
Citation: CRL.A. 8/2020
Bench: Justice Siddharth Mridul, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani
Decided on: 28th April 2022
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