Madhya Pradesh High Court
Ramesh Singh Nayak vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 27 June, 2025
Author: Sanjay Dwivedi
Bench: Sanjay Dwivedi
1 CRA-5898-2020
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT JABALPUR
CRA No. 5898 of 2020
(RAMESH SINGH NAYAK Vs THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND OTHERS )
Dated : 27-06-2025
Shri Sanjeev Kumar Singh -Advocate for the appellant.
Shri Vineet Singh - Government Advocate for the State.
Shri B. S. Thakur -Advocate for the objector.
Heard on I.A. No.5624/2025, which is the fourth application filed under
Section 389(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 on behalf of appellant
Ramesh for suspension of sentence and grant of bail. All his earlier bail
applications have been dismissed as withdrawn.
Vide impugned judgment dated 04.11.2020 passed by the Special Judge,
SC/ST (POA Act), Anuppur, in Special Case No.2/2018, the appellant herein
stands convicted under Section 376 of IPC r/w Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act
and Section 306 of IPC r/w Section 3(2)(v) of SC/ST Act and sentenced
thereunder to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life with fine of Rs.2,000/- and
rigorous imprisonment for life with fine of Rs.1,000/- respectively, with default
stipulations.
This repeat application for seeking suspension of sentence has been argued
on the ground that appellant has been falsely implicated in the case; in fact, he was
the person who tried to extinguish the fire; there was a substantial delay in lodging
the report against appellant as the crime was allegedly committed on 9.10..2017 in
the wee hours at around 3:00 a.m. and FIR was lodged on 11.10.2017 at 1:00 p.m.
It is argued that victim was being harassed and treated with cruelty by her parents
and on account of this, she had even attempted suicide on an earlier occasion. A
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request has, therefore, been made to allow the application.
State has opposed the bail application on the ground that there is an oral
dying declaration of deceased in which she informed her foster mother Jugiya Bai
(P.W.8) that she was raped by appellant and was then poured kerosene oil and set
on fire. It was further argued that the DNA report about sexual intercourse
committed by appellant with prosecutrix is positive. It is also argued that there
were burn injuries on the hands of appellant which were sustained by him during
the incident of immolation. A request has, therefore, been made to dismiss the
application.
Counsel for both the parties have been heard and the record has been
perused.
The DNA report received in this case confirms that appellant had sexual
intercourse with the deceased immediately prior to the incident. The statements of
Mamta Bai (P.W.4) establishes that deceased left her house in the company of
appellant on the evening of preceding date and at around 3:00 a.m. appellant
reached to the house of foster mother of deceased and told that prosecutrix has to
be taken to the hospital. Foster mother Jugiya Bai then reached to the hotel where
prosecutrix was lying in burnt state and on the way to hospital was told by
prosecutrix that appellant first sexually abused prosecutrix and then set her on fire.
It is also stated by Jugiya Bai that after the admission of deceased in the hospital,
appellant fled away.
In the light of this consistent testimony, on all material points, no case for
suspension of sentence is made out.
Though it is being claimed that there was a delay in lodging the FIR, but
we cannot ignore that initially a Marg was registered as the victim had died on the
date of incident itself and definitely a Marg enquiry would have followed. No
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statements of Marg enquiry were requested to be placed on record by defence nor
the witnesses were confronted against their earlier statements of Marg enquiry to
show that there was any improvement while getting the FIR registered against the
appellant. The statements of Mamta Bai, Jugiya Bai and also the DNA report
confirm the presence of appellant along with deceased when the incident took
place. There is no explanation on the part of appellant under Section 106 of the
Indian Evidence Act about the circumstances under which the incident took place.
Having considered the direct involvement of appellant in this crime of rape
and murder of a woman belonging to special category, we do not consider it
appropriate to allow the application and the same is dismissed.
List the case for final hearing.
(SANJAY DWIVEDI) (ANURADHA SHUKLA)
JUDGE JUDGE
ps
