Mewa Lal vs State
2017 Latest Caselaw 3401 ALL

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 

A.F.R.
 
Reserved
 
Court No. - 40
 

 
Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 209 of 1993
 

 
Appellant :- Mewa Lal
 
Respondent :- State
 
Counsel for Appellant :- Narendra Mohan,J.N. Sharma
 
Counsel for Respondent :- A.G.A.
 

 
Hon'ble Bala Krishna Narayana,J.

Hon'ble Siddhartha Varma,J.

(Per: Hon'ble Siddhartha Varma,J.)

Brief facts of the case are that upon a First Information Report being lodged on 11.11.1988, the police registered a case being Criminal Case No. 471 of 1988 under Section 302 and 392 IPC. Though there was no arrest on the spot upon information being received through an informer the appellant/accused was apprehended on 12.11.1988 at about 12:45 am. The lodging of the First Information Report was followed by an investigation which culminated in the submission of a charge sheet under Section 302, 392 and 411 IPC by the Police. Upon receiving the charge sheet, the Xth Additional Sessions Judge, framed charges under Section 302 and 392 IPC wherein the accused pleaded innocence and claimed trial.

In the trial the prosecution examined Om Prakash as P.W.-1, S.P. Gupta as P.W.-2, Anup Kumar as P.W.-3, L.K. Chaturvedi as P.W. 4, Tulsi Ram as P.W. 5, Harish Chandra Gupta as P.W. 6, Dr. B.C. Rastogi as P.W. - 7, Umesh Singh Sengar as P.W. - 8, Brij Kishore as P.W. - 9, J.P. Singh as P.W.-10 and R.K. Singh as P.W. 11.

In defence, the accused examined D.W.1 - Om Prakash Agarwala (Apur Abhiyanta). The Court witnesses, namely, Sri Brijesh Chandra Saxena was also examined. The accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C. proclaimed innocence and enmity was assigned the reason for his false implication. The XIth Additional Sessions Judge, Kanpur Nagar on 19.11.1992 who was the trial Judge, after considering the evidence on record and after hearing the submissions advanced before him by the parties, convicted the appellant under Section 302 and 392 IPC. Under Section 302 IPC, he was sentenced for life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 5,000/-. Under Section 392, the appellant was sentenced for a rigorous imprisonment of five years with a fine of Rs. 2,000/-. Both the sentences were to run concurrently.

Learned counsel for the appellant, in appeal, made the following submissions:-

I. The First Information Report was lodged after a considerable delay.

II. No motive could be specifically pointed out by the prosecution which had forced the appellant to commit a crime as heinous as murder.

III. There was no eye witness of the incident.

IV. Even though the P.W. 1 who was the brother of the husband of the deceased saw the accused-appellant coming out from the place of occurrence, he actually did not see the appellant committing the crime.

V. The accused-appellant was not apprehended from the spot.

VI. The trial was based on evidence which was purely circumstantial in nature and therefore before conviction every circumstance had to be linked. This having not been done, the trial was vitiated.

VII. The prosecution has not been able to definitely ascertain the place of occurrence and that the dead body could have been planted at the alleged place of occurrence and the accused-appellant was only per chance coming out of the room and was falsely implicated.

VIII. When the accused-appellant was not apprehended from the spot then even the recovery of the various stolen articles become suspicious and the learned counsel submitted that even though the material looted was discovered on the pointing of the accused-appellant it could not be ruled out that he had only succumbed to the pressure exercised by the police and had pointed to such objects which were only planted by the Police earlier.

IX. In the end, the learned counsel for the accused-appellant submitted that the prosecution had not been able to establish guilt beyond all reasonable doubt and that, therefore, the appellant be acquitted.

In reply, learned AGA Sri Mulla submitted that if the evidence as was available before the Trial Court was taken into account then there was not an iota of doubt that the crime as was alleged against the appellant was committed by him. He submitted-

I. The accused-appellant was seen coming out of the room alongwith a blood stained knife in his hand and with a bag containing house hold effects.

II. He did run away from the scene of occurrence when was chased and only because of the passing of the train and the closing of the level crossing his apprehension on the spot failed.

III. Human blood was found on his pants and other articles later on recovered, on his pointing out.

IV. The statement of the appellant and of other witnesses and the subsequent recovery of blood stained clothes and the weapon used, all went to indicate that the accused-appellant was guilty of the alleged crime.

V. The medical evidence i.e. the post mortem report and the evidence of the doctor itself was sufficient to hold the accused-appellant guilty beyond any doubt.

VI. Further more, the injury on the palm of his right hand and on the fingers were indication of the fact that the accused-appellant was guilty of the crime.

VII. Motive as was alleged by the prosecution was also definitely present and there was no escape available to the accused-appellant.

Upon having heard the learned counsel for the parties and after having perused the record, this Court finds that the Trial Court rightly found the appellant guilty of the offences under Sections 302 and 392 IPC. A perusal of the evidence of the P.W. 1, the brother of husband of the deceased Smt. Maina Devi, and the evidence of P.W. 5 - Tulsiram, the husband of the deceased, as also the examinations and the cross-examinations of the other prosecution witnesses and the defence witness, it becomes amply clear that the motive as was alleged was definitely there. The accused-appellant having been hurt by Smt. Maina Devi's utterances of the day prior to the occurrence had resulted in his taking a decision to kill her and, therefore, had gone to her house in the absence of her husband and her brother-in-law and had killed her alongwith the two children. The plea of innocence of the accused-appellant is also negatived by the fact that he ran away from the place of murder, upon having been caught red handed with a blood stained knife.

Still further after his arrest, he had admitted that he had concealed certain incriminating articles in his own house and in the house of one Jagdish and upon his pointing out the stolen articles were recovered. The Chemical Examination of the blood on his pants and the blood on the knife which was allegedly used to commit the murder was co-related with the blood of the deceased. The injury on his palm also was an indication of the fact that he was guilty of the murder as he had sustained those injuries at the time when he was giving the fatal blow with his knife which was so hard that it had also hurt the accused-appellant on his palm. The other eye-witnesses, namely, P.W.-2 Sudesh Pal Gupta who is the author of the First Information Report, P.W.- 3 Anup Kumar who was the friend of P.W.- 4 Laxmi Kant Chaturvedi, another eye-witness and was perchance passing through the place of occurrence, all have gone to testify that they had seen the accused-appellant coming out of the place of occurrence. What is more, the accused-appellant has not been able to offer any explanation for his presence in the room and his subsequent escape when he was spotted red handed.

The post mortem report and the medical report, all indicate that the injuries sustained by the deceased were caused by the knife which was seen in the hands of the accused-appellant.

Under such circumstances, after the establishment of the motive and after an in depth analysis of all the evidence which indicated that the accused-appellant had in fact visited the place of occurrence only to murder the deceased Smt. Maina Devi and her two children, we are of the view that the Trial Court rightly concluded that the accused-appellant was guilty of murder of the deceased, Maina Devi and her two children.

However, the record reveals that the accused-appellant was released on probation on 4.10.2007 in compliance of the order dated 14.7.2004 passed by the State Government. The record further reveals that the accused-appellant has not misused the liberty of the licence as was granted by the State Government.

Against the release order the High Court was approached by the complainant and the High Court had held on 5.2.2014 that till such time as the criminal appeal was decided, the accused-appellant could not have been released on probation.

However, when the State of U.P. Filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, against the order of the High Court dated 5.2.2014, then the Supreme Court in Criminal Appeal No. 2119 of 2014 had upheld the order by which the accused-appellant was released on probation. Therefore, though, the appeal is being dismissed, it is held that the appellant as per the order dated 14.7.2004 of the State Government shall remain on probation.

Order Date :- 19/8/2017

praveen.