JUDGEMENT
MUKTA GUPTA,J. -
(1.)Vide impugned judgment dated September 25, 2000 Chaman Lal and Jagan Nath, father and son respectively were convicted for murdering
Bhagwati Devi, the second wife of Chaman Lal and their children Raj Rani,
Geeta, Tara Chand and Gokul Chand.
(2.)The pieces of evidence relied upon by the learned Trial Court to convict Chaman Lal and Jagan Nath were the dying declaration made by
Geeta in the ambulance to Amar Nath, PW -4, testimony of Amar Nath and
Karan Singh, PW -3 evidencing strained relations between the convicts and
the deceased persons, Chaman Lal and Jagan Nath talking to each other on
the night previous to the incident, threat given to Amar Nath by Jagan Nath
on the night of the incident, passive and unconcerned attitude of Jagan Nath
after he was informed of the incident and the post -mortem reports of the five
deceased persons establishing homicidal death. Chaman Lal died during the
pendency of his appeal and thus appeal filed by him being Crl.Appeal
No.7710/2000 abated vide order of this Court dated September 19, 2013.
Thus before us is the appeal by Jagan Nath s/o Chaman Lal.
(3.)Challenging the conviction learned counsel for the appellant contends that the oral dying declaration allegedly made by Geeta to Amar Nath, PW -4
cannot be relied upon for the reason the two other persons accompanying
Amar Nath in the ambulance, that is Ashok Kumar, PW -6 the local resident
and SI Sri Kishan PW -16, the ambulance In -charge stated that Geeta was
unconscious and did not utter a word in the ambulance. The fact that
Chaman Lal and Jagan Nath committed the offence was not informed by
Amar Nath to the doctors at the hospital while they were recording the MLC
and the words used were "beaten and burnt by someone". Though Amar
Nath, PW -4 stated that when he reached the ground floor on being called by
Chaman Lal, he found Geeta and Gokul Chand groaning in pain however,
the scaled site plan Ex.PW -14/A recorded Geeta and Gokul Chand to be
lying unconscious in the room on the ground floor. Geeta was in a serious
condition and unconscious when she was admitted to JPN Hospital at 4.20
AM on April 17, 1992. According to Ashok Kumar and SI Sri Krishan it
took them eight minutes to reach the hospital from the spot of occurrence
and at 05.05 AM Geeta was declared dead owing to 85% burn injuries and
head injuries. Thus the medical evidence also evinces that she was not in a
condition to make a dying declaration. The precarious condition of Geeta is
also fortified by her post -mortem report which reveals the extent of injuries
and burns on her body. Statement of Amar Nath in the Court that the
appellant was conferring with Chaman Lal on the previous night and had
threatened by saying "tu bhi marega", are material improvements from his
earlier statement. Amar Nath had clear motive to implicate Jagan Nath for
the reason he would have then inherited the entire property. Further the fact
that Jagan Nath was speaking to his father on the previous night is not
incriminating in the absence of any evidence throwing light upon the
contents of the conversation. The so called circumstantial evidence led by
the prosecution is presumptive in nature and does not travel the distance
between "may be true" to ,,true". Merely because Chaman Lal informed
Amar Nath about the incident and took him to the ground floor would not
lead to an inference that Chaman Lal and Jagan Nath committed the ghastly
offence. Prosecution witnesses Smt.Shakuntala PW -2, Karan Singh and
Ashok Kumar have deposed that the child of Jagan Nath was seriously ill at
the time of incident and he died few days thereafter thereby improbablising
the involvement of Jagan Nath in the offence committed especially when his
own son was on the death bed. The motive alleged against Chaman Lal and
Jagan Nath by the prosecution is not incriminating. From the statement of
the independent witnesses and the ruqqa no role has been attributed to Jagan
Nath in the previous quarrels between Chaman Lal and Smt.Bhagwati Devi
which is also evident from the fact that investigation was carried out against
Karan Singh, PW -3 as he was also detained after the incident and his TSR
was seized. Reliance is placed on the decisions reported as 1897 SCC
OnLine Cal 7 Empress vs. Naba Kumar Patnaik & Ors., AIR 1960 AP 490
(V 47 C 160) In re Kamya, 1977 (3) SCC 268 Ram Lakhan Singh & Ors. vs.
State of Uttar Pradesh, 2011 (11) SCC 140 Rathinam @ Rathinam vs. State
of Tamil Nadu & Anr., 2004 (11) SCC 282 Dasari Siva Prasad Reddy vs.
Public Prosecutor, High Court of A.P. and 2004 (11) SCC 291 Sakatar
Singh & Ors. vs. State of Haryana.
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