Madhya Pradesh High Court
Laxman Singh vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 25 August, 2023
Author: Anuradha Shukla
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT JABALPUR
BEFORE
HON'BLE SMT. JUSTICE ANURADHA SHUKLA
ON THE 25th OF AUGUST, 2023
CRIMINAL REVISION No. 2659 of 2023
BETWEEN:-
1. LAXMAN SINGH S/O HIRALAL
AHIRWAR, AGED ABOUT 46
YEARS, OCCUPATION: SELF
EMPLOYED
2. RAHUL SINGH S/O LAXMAN
SINGH, AGED ABOUT 24 YEARS,
OCCUPATION: SELF EMPLOYED
3. MUKESH AHIRWAR S/O
MUNNALAL AHIRWAR, AGED
ABOUT 38 YEARS, OCCUPATION:
SELF EMPLOYED
4. SURAJ AHIRWAR S/O
MUNNALAL AHIRWAR, AGED
ABOUT 35 YEARS, OCCUPATION:
SELF EMPLOYED
5. VRINDHAVAN AHIRWAR S/O
GABDU AHIRWAR, AGED ABOUT
36 YEARS, OCCUPATION: SELF
EMPLOYED
ALL R/O VILLAGE BUDHAGANJ
POLICE STATION GAIRATGANJ
DISTRICT RAISEN (M.P.)
.....PETITIONERS
(BY SHRI UJJWAL VAIDYA - ADVOCATE)
AND
THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH
THROUGH DISTRICT GAIRATGANJ
DISTRICT- RAISEN (M.P.)
.....RESPONDENT
(BY SHRI DEVENDRA SHUKLA - PANEL LAWYER )
RESERVED ON : 23.08.2023
PRONOUNCED ON : 25.08.2023
This revision having been heard and reserved for order, coming on
for pronouncement this day, the court passed the following:
ORDE R
This criminal revision has been preferred assailing the judgment
passed on 14.06.2023 by the 1st Additional Sessions, Judge
Begumganj district Raisen in Criminal Appeal No.02/2021, whereby
the appeal of applicants was allowed only partially and judgment of
conviction passed on 25.01.2021 by JMFC Gairatganj, District Raisen
R.C.T. No.640/2015 was upheld by the appellate Court. The appellate
Court while confirming the conviction of applicants under Section 325
of IPC modified the sentence passed by the trial Court to 4 months'
rigorous imprisonment and fine amount of Rs.200/- with default
stipulation.
2. Brief facts of the prosecution case are that when Rishiraj, the
brother of complainant Suraj Singh was returning home, applicants
Laxman, Rahul and Mukesh stopped him, started hurling abuses for
being angry on account of a dispute that occurred between Rishiraj and
Rahul about two days ago. All three of them attacked Rishiraj with
dandas. Thereafter the other two applicants namely Suraj and
Vrindavan also came there and joined the assailing party. When Anil
Sharma, Rohit Gaur and Balmukund intervened to save Rishiraj, all
the five assailants ran away giving threats to kill Rishiraj. Upon being
informed about the incident, complainant Suraj Singh came to the spot
and saw his brother Rishiraj lying there in injured state. He took the
injured to the police station and lodged the FIR. The investigation was
initiated and after completing necessary proceedings the charge-sheet
was filed. The applicants were tried for the offences under Section
294, 325 and 506-II of IPC. The trial Court convicted them only for
the offence of Section 325 of IPC and sentenced them to 1 year
rigorous imprisonment with a fine amount of Rs.200/-. Against
judgment of the trial Court, the applicants filed a criminal appeal,
which was allowed partly by the impugned judgment.
3. The grounds raised in this revision are that there were glaring,
contradictions, omissions and embellishments in the statements of
prosecution witnesses, which have rendered the entire prosecution
story unreliable, that the learned Court below have miserably failed to
appreciate these infirmities and it appears that the conviction was
passed in predetermined manner. There was no seizure of arms and as
per the statements of medical officer (PW1), the injury caused to the
victim was simple in nature, while the statements of another doctor
namely Dr. Puneet Dixit (PW8) reveal that he neither conducted CT
scan nor the x-ray test, therefore, his statements cannot be used to
draw any conclusion. It is, therefore, prayed that the impugned
judgment of appellate Court be quashed and the applicants be
acquitted.
4. This criminal revision has been opposed by the learned counsel
for the State claiming that there is no illegality or perversity in the
judgment which would justify interference of this Court. It is,
therefore, prayed that the revision be dismissed.
5. Both the parties have been heard through their counsels and
records of the Court below have been perused.
6. The impugned judgment has been assailed primarily on the
ground that there were serious contradictions, omissions and
improvements in the statements of prosecution witnesses, which were
not considered while upholding the conviction of applicants. It is
claimed that ignoring the inconsistencies in the statements of
witnesses, the appellate Court has passed an erroneous judgment. The
evidence led by the prosecution is carefully examined in the light of
this ground.
7. It is claimed in the FIR (Ex.P/2) that complainant Suraj Singh,
who is the brother of injured Rishiraj had arrived at the spot when the
assault was going on and he witnessed a part of the incident, but
during his statement before the Court, he has admitted that he did not
see the incident and when he reached the spot upon the information of
assault, he found none of the applicants present there. Therefore, this
witness has failed to corroborate the facts that were stated by him in
the FIR (Ex.P-2).
8. The learned appellate Court has placed emphasis on the fact that
though the contents of FIR were not proved by the statements of
complainant Suraj Singh (PW2), but it is important to note that the FIR
was lodged without making any delay and all the five applicants were
named therein. It may be observed that FIR (Ex.P/2) does not reveal
that from which source the complainant got knowledge about the fact
that applicants named in the FIR were the assailants. It is important
that complainant himself did not lodge the report and any of the
eyewitnesses, whose names were mentioned in the FIR, were also not
the person lodging the FIR.
9. Anil Sharma (PW3) is claimed to have seen the incident.
According to him, applicants were under the influence of liquor and
were assaulting Rishiraj, but in his cross-examination he has admitted
that applicant Laxman was not present at the spot and he saw only
other four applicants namely Rahul, Mukesh, Suraj and Vrindavan
attacking the victim.
10. Rohit (PW4) is claimed to be the other eyewitness and according
to him, all the five applicants attacked the victim with danda. He has
also named Balmukund as one of the eyewitnesses present on the
scene whose name has not been disclosed in the statement of Anil
Sharma (PW3). If we analyze the statements of Balmukund (PW5), it
is clear that he has added the name of one Halle as one of the
assailants. According to him, the fight broke out between injured
Rishiraj and Halle; Halle gave a blow with danda and also with
katarna on the head of Rishiraj and then fled away from the scene.
According to him, he did not see anything else during the incident and
when he was asked about the overt acts of present applicants, he first
expressed his ignorance and in answer to leading questions he claimed
that only applicants Laxman, Rahul and Mukesh hurled abuses to
Rishiraj, but denied the fact that they attacked Rishiraj with danda.
Later, he again changed his statement claiming that all the five
applicants assaulted the injured. According to statements of this
witness, there were six assailants; five were the present applicants and
additional one was Halle, whose second name is Harikrishn.
11. From the above discussion, it is evident that if eyewitness
Anil Sharma was making a claim that applicant Laxman was not there
then another eyewitness Balmukund has made a claim that another
person besides the present applicants named Halle @ Harikrishn was
involved in this assault and it was Halle, who caused injuries on the
head of Rishiraj with danda and katarna. Further, this witness
Balmukund has not been stable about the act of applicants in the
alleged assault. Thus, the plea taken by the applicants that there were
serious contradictions and embellishments in the prosecution evidence
is found to be well placed.
12. Now comes the analysis of statement of victim Rishiraj (PW6).
According to him, when he was returning home alongwith cattle,
applicants Rahul and Vrindavan met him alongwith other applicants
and Halle as well as Harikrishn, who were hurling abuses to him and
when asked not to utter these abuses, applicants Rahul, Vrindavan,
Mukesh, Laxman and other two persons namely Harikesh and Halle
attacked him with danda and katarna. Interestingly, the name of
applicant Suraj Singh is missing in these statements of victim as his
assailant. Further, at some place the victim has named Harikesh and at
some other place he has named as Harikrishn as his assailant. It is also
noteworthy that eyewitness Balmukund has stated on oath that Halle
and Harikrishn are one and the same person. It is also claimed by
victim Rishiraj that the assailants were having farsa with them.
13. These statements of victim and eyewitnesses reveal that they
have not been consistent upon involvement of applicants Laxman and
Suraj in the alleged assault and some other persons besides the present
applicants were claimed to be involved in the assault. The prior
enmity between the two parties is evident from the FIR itself, which
claims that there was a dispute between victim Rishiraj and Rahul only
two days prior to the incident.
14. Dr. Sandeep Yadav is the Medical Officer, who examined victim
Rishiraj and prepared the MLC (Ex.P-1). According to him, there were
only two injuries found on the person of Rishiraj; one was a lacerated
wound over left parietal region and another was abrasion on left side
of chest. In the light of statement of Dr. Puneet Dixit (PW8), there
was a small linear fracture over the left temporal bone of victim
Rishiraj, therefore, he found head injury to be grievous in nature. The
other injury caused on chest was only simple in nature. It is not
worthy of belief that present applicants which were five in numbers
and three more persons namely Halle, Harikrishn and Harikesh caused
only these two injuries despite the claim that all the assailants were
carrying danda, katarna and farsa. Katarna and farsa are the sharp
edged weapons.
15. The impugned judgment passed by the learned appellate Court is
examined and it is apparent that a statement given by victim Rishiraj
about a month after the incident was relied upon by the defence
because in this statement dated 21.10.2015, victim Rishiraj had
claimed that he was given abuses by applicant Rahul and other two
persons namely, Halle and Harikrishn and was assaulted only by Halle
and Harikrishn. It was contended by the defence that the name of
other four applicants was not mentioned in this statement. The
appellate Court considered the argument and held that this plea cannot
be considered because these statements were not brought into the
knowledge of victim Rishiraj during his cross-examination and the
compliance of Section 145 of Indian Evidence Act was not ensured.
Legally speaking, this observation is correct but it is also evident that
the contradictions regarding the name of applicants and other
assailants was not meticulously considered by the learned trial Court.
These contradictions were present in the Court testimony of witnesses
and there was no need to draw attention of witnesses to their previous
statements. Those contradictions have been discussed in earlier paras.
The learned Court below was under obligation to examine whether the
statements of the injured and eyewitnesses were reliable despite these
contradictions. It is, however, evident that no such examination or
appreciation has been undertaken and it is merely observed in para 14
of the impugned judgment that there is no substantial contradiction in
the prosecution evidence, which shows that the evidence was only
summarily and superficially analyzed.
16. In the light of above discussion regarding contradictions in the
statements about the name of assailants as well as the weapon used by
them and the hypothesis of eight persons armed with deadly weapons
causing only two injuries being improbable, this Court comes to the
conclusion that the impugned judgment being against the evidence
available on record is not sustainable in facts.
17. Accordingly, this criminal revision is allowed and the applicants
are acquitted of the charge of Section 325 of IPC. The fine amount, if
any, deposited by them be refunded back to them.
18. Let a copy of this order alongwith record be sent back to the
Court below for information and necessary compliance.
(ANURADHA SHUKLA)
JUDGE
rv
Digitally signed by NITESH
PANDEY
Date: 2023.08.28 18:02:55 +05'30'
