Gopi Krishna and another v State of Uttar Pradesh
Allahabad High Court
3 July 2013
Criminal Appeal CR. P. C. No. 2997 of 1981, Criminal Appeal CR. P. C. No. 2944 of 1981
The Order of the Court was as follows :
1. In both the appeals the judgment and order dated 28.11.1981, passed by the XI Additional Sessions Judge, Kanpur, passed in Sessions Trial No.135 of 1981, State of U.P. vs. Badloo and others, under Sections 399 / 402 IPC is under challenge, as such both the appeals are being decided together.
2. Appeal No.2997 of 1981 was filed by Gopi Krishna s/o Nanhu and Ram Dayal s/o Parmu Lal. Appellant Gopi Krishna was reported to have died and accordingly vide order of this court dated 1.5.2007, the appeal in so far as appellant Gopi Krishna is concerned, stood abated and as such it survived only on behalf of appellant Ram Dayal.
Appeal No. 2944 of 1981 was filed by Zamil Ahmad s/o Smail Khan.
3. I have heard Sri M. N. Siddiqui, Advocate on behalf of appellants Ram Dayal and Zamil Ahmad and the learned AGA for the State.
4. The Station House Officer, P.S. Bilhaur, District Kanpur is said to have received some information on 13.1.1981 that a group of dacoits, headed by Badloo, were likely to assemble in Village Mahgava in the grove of one Arjun Singh Raidas after midnight at about 2.30 a.m. with a plan to commit dacoity at the house of one Yashwant Bahadur Katiyar of the same village. The Station House Officer collected adequate force and proceeded for the suspected place to arrest Badloo and his gang members. Three separate teams were formed and they took respective positions. The gang members started collecting at about 1.15 a.m. At the appropriate time the Station House Officer moved forward and challenged the dacoits. The other two parties also acted as per the plan and seven of the dacoits were arrested on the spot whereas the rest managed to escape. Out of seven arrested dacoits four dacoits were found to be in possession of pistols & cartridges and remaining three were armed with Kulharies and Lathies. Relevant documents were prepared and a case was registered against the arrested accused persons. Upon completion of investigation, charge sheet was submitted. One of the accused Sudhir Kumar is said to have died during the trial as such only six of the arrested accused faced the trial.
5. Prosecution examined Sri Shri Pal Singh, Head Constable (PW1), Kishan Singh, Inspector (PW 2), Ram Kishan, resident of Village Gaheliyapurwa (PW 3), Sub Inspector S.K. Singh, who investigated the case (PW 4) and Sub Inspector Ram Das Chaudhary (PW 5).
6. All the accused in their statements under Section 313 Code of Criminal Procedure denied the allegations and alleged that they have been falsely implicated. In short all the accused persons have stated that they were at their respective houses from where they had been called by different officials of the police station for different reasons and thereafter they were shown to have been arrested.
7. The Trial Judge after considering the material evidence on record convicted the accused persons under Sections 399 and 402 IPC and sentenced them to undergo four years rigorous imprisonment under Section 399 IPC and three years rigorous imprisonment under Section 402 IPC. Both the sentences were to run concurrently.
8. The learned counsel for the appellants has sought to argue that the Trial Judge committed grave error in convicting the appellants. According to him it was a totally false and fabricated case set up by the police. The accused had led evidence in defence to stablish that the accused appellants were neither at their houses nor at their work place from where they had been called by the police in the presence of the witnesses produced by them. The evidence of defence has been wrongly discarded by the Trial Judge.
9. On the other hand the learned AGA has submitted that the conviction and sentence of the accused appellants is based upon credible evidence led by the prosecution. They were arrested at the middle of night from a grove for which they have not given any explanation as to why they had assembled at that part of the night. They were also armed with lethal weapons which also indicates their intention or plan to commit dacoity. It is also submitted by the learned AGA that in addition to the witnesses who were police personnels there were independent witnesses also against whom no grudge had been alleged by the accused.
10. Having considered the submissions and having perused the material on record, I find that the Trial Judge has rightly convicted the accused appellants after rejecting the evidence led by the defence as being self- contradictory and for which cogent reasons have been given as to why it had been discarded. Thus, I am not inclined to interfere with the conviction of the accused appellants.
11. Now coming to the sentence, it may be noticed that the appellants do not have any criminal antecedents nor over the years in the various reports submitted by the police any adverse fact has been drawn or placed before this court. The incident is more than thirty two years’ old and it would not serve any purpose by sending the accused appellants to jail to serve out the remaining sentence. The Apex Court in the cases of (i) Mohd. Hoshan and another vs. State of A.P. [2002 STPL (LE) 31686 SC 2002 Indlaw SC 1658], (ii) Hasi Mohan Barman and another vs. State of Assam & another [2007 CSTPL (LE) 39128 SC 2007 Indlaw SC 1138 and (iii) Ishwar Singh vs. State of Madhya Pradesh 2008 Indlaw SC 1654 [2008-LAWS (SC)-10-52 has taken a consistent view that ends of justice would be served in such cases by reducing the sentence of the accused.
12. In view of above discussions and the consistent view taken by the Apex Court, in the cases referred to above, the sentences awarded to the accused appellants are altered to the period of imprisonment already undergone by them.
With the above modification in the sentences both the appeals stand party allowed.
Appeals partly allowed
