REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 739-740 OF 2009
KAMLESHWAR PASWAN
.. APPELLANT(S)
vs.
STATE OF U.T. CHANDIGARH
.. RESPONDENT(S)
O
RDER
This is indeed a very unfortunate case.
On 15th January, Gurnam Singh (PW.3), a resident of
House No.1 in village Kishangarh in the Union Territory of
Chandigarh, had gone to meet a servant of one Milkha Singh
for some personal work. As he reached the house of Pritam
Singh, he found a woman standing outside shouting “killed
them-killed them”. PW.3, Gurnam Singh, also heard the
voice of a screaming child from inside the house of Pritam
Singh.
PW.3 forced open the door and saw the
accused/appellant Kamleshwar Paswan beating his three
children with a wooden stick and Yashoda, the daughter of
the appellant, lying on one side with serious injuries. He
also noticed that the appellant's sons Sunil Paswan and
Suraj Paswan (aged one and three years respectively) had
also suffered injuries and were unconscious. Gurnam Singh
PW accompanied by Sunaina (DW.2), the wife of the
accused/appellant, took the children to Sharma Clinic in
village Kishangarh. The Doctor told them that as the
children were in a serious condition they should be taken
to the PGI, Chandigarh. In the meantime a vehicle from the
Police Control Room reached Sharma Clinic and PW.3 and DW.2
along with the three injured children were taken to the
General Hospital, Sector 16, Chandigarh which referred them
further to the PGI, for treatment. In the PGI PW.3 made a
statement to PW.14 SI Sunehara Singh narrating the above
facts on which a First Information Report was registered
under Section 307 of the IPC at Police Station, Manimajra
in the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The two boys
thereafter died and case under Section 302 of the IPC was
added on. PW.14 also visited the place of occurrence and
made the necessary investigations. A challan was
ultimately filed under Sections 302 and 308 of the IPC and
the appellant was committed to stand trial. The Trial
Court relying on the eye witnesses account of PW.1 Vinod,
PW.2-Anil Kumar, the immediate neighbours of the appellant
and his family and PW.3 Gurnam Singh held that the case
against the appellant stood proved beyond doubt. Sunaina,
the wife of the appellant, however, appeared as a defence
witness and gave a statement that the three children had
received injuries accidently and that the appellant had no
role to play. The Trial Court relying on evidence of the
three prosecution witnesses mentioned above
as supported by the medical evidence given by PW.4-Dr.
Dlbar Singh, who had conducted the post-mortem examination
on the dead bodies and had also examined the injuries on
Yashoda, convicted the appellant under Section 302 and 307
of the IPC and sentenced him to death for the murder of his
two sons. No separate sentence was awarded for the offence
under Section 307 of the IPC. The matter was thereafter
referred to the High Court for the confirmation of the
death sentence and the appellant also filed an appeal. The
High Court has, by the impugned judgment, confirmed the
death sentence and dismissed the appeal. The matter is
before us in these circumstances.
We have heard the learned counsel for the parties
very carefully. We see that the case of the prosecution is
clearly spelt out from the evidence. No fault can be found
with the eye-witness account of PWs. 1, 2 and 3 and their
statements are clearly supported by the evidence of the
Doctor PW.4. The defence story projected by DW.2, the wife
of the appellant, is on the face is unacceptable as the
Doctor opined that the injuries suffered by the three
victims could not have been caused in the manner suggested
by her. The very nature of the injuries clearly reveal
that they were the result of a direct attack in a brutal
and violent fashion with a lathi.
Mrs. S.Usha Reddy, the Legal Aid Counsel for the
appellant, has however pointed out that the present case
did not fall under the category of the rarest of the rare
cases in the light of the fact that the appellant was a
young man of 28 years on the date of the incident and that
the offence had been committed by him (as per the
prosecution story) while he was in an inebriated condition
and after a quarrel with his wife. We cannot also ignore
the fact that he was a rickshaw puller and a migrant in
Chandigarh with the attendant psychological and economic
pressures that so often overtake and overwhelm such
persons. Village Kishangarh is a part of the Union
Territory of Chandigarh and a stone throw from its elite
Sectors that house the Governors of Punjab and Haryana, the
Golf Club, and some of the cities most important and
opulent citizens. It goes without saying that most such
neighbourhoods are often the most unfriendly and
indifferent to each others needs. Little wonder his
frustrations apparently came to the fore leading to the
horrendous incident. Nevertheless keeping in view the
overall picture and in the light of what has been mentioned
above, we feel that the ends of justice would be met if the
appeal is allowed to the extent that the death sentence is
substituted by a term of life imprisonment.
We accordingly dismiss the appeals but commute the
sentence from death to life.
.................J.
(HARJIT SINGH BEDI)
....................J.
(CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD)
New
Delhi,
January 11, 2011.