LexDR. KRISHNA PAL AND ANR. versus STATE OF U.P.
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DR. KRISHNA PAL AND ANR. A v. STATE OF U.P. NOVEMBER 30, 1995 [G.N. RAY AND G.T. NANA VAT!, JJ.] B Code of Criminal Procedure, 197~Section 161-Recording of state- ment-De/ay in-Effect of-if fatal to the prosecution's case. --. The appellants had prior animosity with the family of the deceased. c It was alleged that the deceased was attacked by the accused appellants with knives in front of the shop of P.W. 6. Altogether sixteen injuries were inflicted on the body of the deceased resulting in his death on the spot. P.W. 1 who was the uncle of the deceased came to the place of occurrence after being informed about the incident and thereafter, he made a state- D ment which was scribed by his relative and FIR was recorded on the basis of the said statement. The FIR mentioned the names of P.W. 2 and P.W. 3 as eye-witnesses but the name of P .W. 6 was not mentioned as an eye witness. During investigation, the statements of P.W. 2 and P.W. 3 was recorded after 3 weeks, whereas that of P.W. 6 was recorded after 56 days. The Trial Court held the appellants guilty of offence under Section 302 E !PC read with sections 148 and 149 I.P.C. and the appeal of the accnsed persons to the High Conrt was dismissed. In the present appeals to this court, the appellants contended that the omission to mention P.W. 6 as an eye witness in the FIR as well as the F inordinate and unexplained delay in examining the witnesses raises a strong snspicion against the genuineness of the case. ,r Dismissing the appeals, this Court HELD : 1. P.Ws. 2, 3 aud 6 have clearly established the prosecution G case that the appellants caused the murder of lb• deceased by inflicting successive knife blows on his person. [27-G] 2. It is not unlikely that P.W. 1 had not felt the need to specifically , enquire from P.W. 6 as to whether he had seen the assailants because it has come out in the evidence that a number of persons were present at the H 21 22 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1995] SUPP. 6 S.C.R. A place of occurrence when P.W. 1 reached there and he talked to them including P.W. 6. It is also not unlikely that P.W. 6 also did not feel any necessity to give the names of the assailants because such names had already been given by other eye witnesses present there. [28-B] 3. In the instant case, no explanation has been given by the prosecu- B lion as to why the eye witnesses had not been examined shortly after the incident and from the materials on record it appears that there had been inordinate delay in examining the eye witnesses. But simply on that ac- count the convincing and reliable evidences adduced in this case should not be discarded. The Investigating Officer had not been diligent enough C but for that reason reliable and clinching evidences adduced in this case by the eye witnesses particularly by P.W. 6 should not be discarded. [28-C-D] Kamel Singh v. State of M.P., JT [1995] 6 SC 437, referred to. D Ba/akrnshna Swain v. State of Orissa, AIR (1971) SC 804;Atrnaduddin E F G v. State of U.P., AIR (1974) SC 1901 andRanbirandAnr. v. State of Punjab, [19731 2 sec 444, cited. CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Criminal Appeal Nos. 443-44 of 1994 Etc. From the Judgment and Order dated 24.3.93 of the Allahabad High Court in Crl. A. No. 3(J(j2f79 with Cr!. A. No. 3247/79. M.C. Dhingra for the Appellants in Cr!. A. No. 443-44/94. P.K. Dey, for Ms. Rani Jethmalani for the Appellants in Cr!. No. 445- 46/94. Pramod Swarup for A.S. Pundir for the Respondent. The following Order of the Court was delivered : These appeals are directed against the judgment dated March 24, 1993 passed by the High Court at Allahabad in Criminal Appeal No. 3062/79 and Criminal Appeal No. 3247/79. Both the aforesaid appeals were preferred by the accused-appellants against their conviction and sentence H passed by the learned !st Additional Sessions Judge, Meerut in Sessions - ' .. KRISHNA PAL v. STATE 23 Trial No. 5179 under Section 302 read with Section 148 and 149 !PC and A convicting the appellants for life imprisonment on the charge of murder and also convicting them under Section 148 !PC. The five appellants, namely, Trikha (A-1) his two sons, Sohanvir (A-2) and Amar Pal (A-3) his brother's son, Krishana Pal (A-4) and Veerpal (A-5) also a relation of Trikha, were prosecuted under Section 302 read with Sections 148 & 149 B !PC for causing death of one Amar Pal on October 11, 1978 at about 12.30 P.M. The prosec
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