Sheikh Haddis & Ors. vs The State Of M.P.
2024 Latest Caselaw 3150 MP

Madhya Pradesh High Court

Sheikh Haddis & Ors. vs The State Of M.P. on 2 February, 2024

Author: Anuradha Shukla

Bench: Anuradha Shukla

                                 1
 IN      THE     HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
                      AT JABALPUR
                          BEFORE
           HON'BLE SMT. JUSTICE ANURADHA SHUKLA
                    ON THE 2 nd OF FEBRUARY, 2024
                 CRIMINAL APPEAL No. 1561 of 1998

BETWEEN:-
1.    SHEIKH HADDIS, S/O TAJ MOHAMMAD, AGED
      ABOUT 27 YEARS

2.    SHAN   MOHAMMAD           S/O SHEIKH   JOHN
      MOHAMMAD,     AGED        ABOUT  20  YEARS,
      OCCUPATION: KHETI

3.    TAJ MOHAMMAD, S/O KARIM BUX, AGED ABOUT
      20 YEARS, OCCUPATION: ARJINAVIS

4.    VISHESHAR KOL, S/O KALOO KOL, AGED ABOUT
      40 YEARS, OCCUPATION: LABOUR

      ALL RESIDENTS OF BARAHATA THANA CHANDIA,
      TAHSIL BANDHAVGARH, DISTRICT UMARIA
      (MADHYA PRADESH)

                                                              .....APPELLANTS
(NONE)

AND
STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

                                                              .....RESPONDENT
(BY SMT. VINEETA SHARMA - PANEL LAWYER)

      Reserved on     : 10.01.2024
      Pronounced on: 02.02.2024

      This appeal having been heard and reserved for judgment, coming on
for pronouncement this day, the court passed the following:
                                JUDGMENT

Against the judgment of conviction and sentence passed on 14.7.1998 by Additional Sessions Judge, Umaria, in Sessions Trial No.231/1997, this criminal appeal has been preferred. Under that judgment, appellant Sheikh Haddis was convicted for the offence of Sections 326 and 323 IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years and rigorous imprisonment for one year with fine of Rs.2,000/- respectively. Appellant Visheshar Kol was convicted for the offence of Section 324 IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for two years and fine of Rs.2,000/- and rest of the two appellants, namely Shan Mohammad and Taj Mohammad, were convicted for the offence of Section 323 IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year and fine of

Rs.500/- each. All the four appellants were also convicted for the offence of Section 452 IPC and sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs.500/- each respectively. The additional term of imprisonment to each of the appellant was also awarded in default in payment of fine.

2 . Brief facts of the prosecution case are that the appellants were entertaining enmity with the complainant side and prior to the incident of 19.9.1997, appellant Sheikh Haddis had assaulted victim Majboot Singh for which a separate FIR was registered; this made the appellant side more furious and aggressive; to avenge this, they arrived at the house of victim at around 7:00 p.m. on 19.9.1997 accompanied with a huge crowd; after entering into the house, they started assault in which Chote Singh sustained grievous injuries and went unconscious; Surendra Singh too was injured and when their parents tried to shield them, they too were attacked by the appellants; on hearing the screams, villagers arrived upon which appellants fled away; report was lodged in Police Station, Chandia, district Umaria, and injured were sent to the hospital at Umaria for examination and treatment; the matter was investigated at Crime

No.118/1997 and the charge-sheet was filed. Total 15 persons faced the trial, out of which only present appellants were convicted and sentenced as aforesaid while rest of the 11 persons facing trial were acquitted under the impugned judgment. The appellants too were acquitted of the offence of Sections 307 and 148 of IPC.

3. The grounds raised in this criminal appeal are that the conviction of appellants is bad in law and on facts, for the simple reason that statements of prosecution witnesses were full of improvements, omissions and contradictions and on same set of evidence, only four appellants were convicted while rest of the 11 persons, who faced the trial, were acquitted; the prosecution witnesses were partisan and interested witnesses; it was ignored that even appellant Sheikh Haddis received numerous injuries which were mentioned in his arrest memo, marked as Ex.D-1; not a single word was said by prosecution witnesses to explain these injuries; the defence of appellants was not at all considered by the trial court; no independent witnesses supported the prosecution story; there were contradictory opinions of Dr. A. P. Tiwari and Dr. (Smt.) Subhadra Thakur but they were not considered by the trial court. It is submitted that the learned trial court failed to give proper and effective opportunity to examine the defence witnesses. It is, therefore, prayed that the appeal should be allowed and the appellants should be acquitted.

4. Learned counsel for the State has opposed the appeal by submitting that from the prosecution evidence, guilt of appellants is clearly proved and, therefore, the trial court did not commit any error in finding the appellants guilty for the aforesaid offence. A prayer for rejection of the appeal was accordingly made.

5 . As no one has appeared on behalf of the appellants, therefore, the arguments only on behalf of State have been heard. The judgment and record of the court below have also been perused.

6 . To prove its case, prosecution has relied upon the testimonies of injured Surendra Singh (P.W.1) and Chote Singh (P.W.2), their father Majboot Singh (P.W.3), wife of Surendra Singh, namely Sudha Bai (P.W.4), independent witness Ram Naresh Tripathi (P.W.5), Dr. A. P. Dwivedi (P.W.7), Dr. (Smt.) Subhadra Thakur (P.W.8) and Investigating Officer Sajjan Singh Parihar (P.W.6). No witness was examined in defence. It has been mentioned in the appeal-memo that the investigation undertaken in the case was not fair as the injuries sustained by appellant Sheikh Haddis were not reported along with the charge-sheet. It is claimed that appellant Sheikh Haddis had sustained injuries and this fact has been admitted even by the Investigating Officer. Sajjan Singh Parihar (P.W.6) in his cross-examination. Para 27 of his cross-examination reveals that there is an admission about the injuries sustained by appellant Sheikh Haddis but only arrest warrant, Ex.D-1, was exhibited by the defence in evidence to show these injuries. The arrest memo does not prove the nature of injuries.

7 . If any such injury which was significant in nature was caused to appellant Sheikh Haddis, then it is not explained why he did not report the matter to the police and made a cross-FIR. No question was asked in cross- examination of Sajjan Singh Parihar (P.W.6) about the nature of these injuries, therefore this court is of the opinion that the alleged injuries caused to appellant Sheikh Haddis were not of such a significant nature that the defence considered it needful to bring their nature on record or to lodge a cross-FIR on their basis.

8 . The prosecution has relied upon the statements of injured and their

relatives. Further, independent witness Ram Naresh Tripathi (P.W.5) has also supported the prosecution case. The defence has cross-examined the independent witness Ram Naresh Tripathi (P.W.5) on the fact that this witness had enmity with the appellants, therefore he should be relied upon. Despite admission of earlier dispute by this witness during his cross-examination, it cannot be ignored that previous enmity cannot be the lone ground to discard the testimony of this witness. He was a villager and had natural presence on the spot. Further, the case which was registered by this witness against the appellants side had the origin of two-three years prior to the present incident, therefore it cannot be assumed that the witness was entertaining a grudge against the appellants even after such a long period.

9 . The statements of Surendra Singh (P.W.1), Chote Singh (P.W.2), Majboot Singh (P.W.3) and Sudha Bai (P.W.4) have not been found to be unreliable so far as they relate to the acts of appellants in the incident. Regarding other persons who were put on trial, the statements of these witnesses were not credible as no active participation was attributed to those persons, therefore the trial court was justified in passing the verdict of acquittal in favour of some and verdict of conviction against others on the same set of evidence.

10. The injuries sustained in the incident by the complainant party have been detailed in the statements of Dr. A. P. Dwivedi (P.W.7) and his reports, marked as Exs.P-13, P-14 and P-15. Some of these injuries were caused on vital parts of the injured persons and further few of them were caused by hard and sharp object. Dr. (Smt.) Subhadra Thakur (P.W.8) had found that the injury caused on the head of injured Chote Singh were of grievous nature and this injury was caused by hard and sharp object. Merely for the reason that the

weapon used for causing these injuries was not described properly by the prosecution witnesses cannot be a basis to discredit the prosecution story. According to defence, there was a confusion whether the weapon used was Tanga or Tangi but defence itself has not tried to highlight the difference between these two types of weapons.

11. On the basis of credible testimony of prosecution witnesses, the finding of innocence could not have been given in favour of appellants, therefore the conviction of appellants as given by the trial court does not deserve any interference in this appeal. Enmity is a double-edged sword and it cannot be assumed that only false implication is the outcome of enmity. In contra-disposition, enmity normally provokes to take revenge and in the present case, it appears that the long standing enmity between the two sides inspired the appellants to execute their intention to commit offence against the complainant party. No defence evidence was led to prove that the property of appellant Sheikh Haddis was in danger or the complainant party was aggressor.

12. In the light of above discussion, this appeal fails against the finding of conviction. Considered the sentence awarded by the learned trial court. Evaluating the nature of injuries and the gravity of crime, the sentence awarded by the trial court for the offence of Section 452 IPC to R.I. of one year and fine of Rs.500/- is maintained with a default clause to undergo additional imprisonment of six months for non-payment of fine. The sentence for the offence of Section 326 IPC awarded to appellant Sheikh Haddis is reduced to R.I. of three years with a fine of Rs.2,000/- and default stipulation of additional imprisonment of one year for non-payment of fine. The sentence awarded under Section 323 IPC to appellant Sheikh Haddis, Shan Mohammad and Taj Mohammad is reduced to two months R.I. The sentence awarded under

Section 324 IPC to appellant Visheshar Kol is reduced to R.I. of six months.

13. The appeal accordingly fails and the judgment of trial court regarding conviction and sentence is upheld.

14. The appellants are on bail. Their bail-bonds stand discharged. They b e immediately taken into custody and be send to jail to suffer the remaining part of the sentence.

15. Let a copy of this judgment be send to the trial court along with its record for information and necessary compliance.

(ANURADHA SHUKLA) JUDGE ps

Date: 2024.02.03 11:26:13 +05'30'