KAMLESHWAR PASWAN versus STATE OF U.T. CHANDIGARH

Citation: [2011] 1 S.C.R. 647 · Decided: 11-01-2011 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: H.S. BEDI, C.K. PRASAD · Disposal: Dismissed

Cited by 2 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

648 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[2011] 1 S.C.R. 
A 
S. Usha Reddy for the Appellant. 
B 
Kamini Jaiswal, Advocate., for the Respondent. 
The following order of the Court was delivered 
ORDER 
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 
C 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. 
D 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 
E 
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 
F 
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 
G 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 
H visited the place of occurrence and made the necessary 
KAMLESHWAR PASWAN v. STATE OF U.T. 
649 
CHANDIGARH 
302 and 308 of the IPC and the appellant was committed to 
A 
stand trial. The Trial Court relying on the eye witnesses account 
of PW.1 ·Vined, 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 
B 
at 
defencewitness 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 
D 
the IPC. The matter was thereafter referred to the High Court 
y 
for the confirmation of the death sentence and the appellant 
also filed an appeal. Tbe High Court has, by the impugned 
judgment, confirmed the death sentence and dismissed the 
appeal. The matter is before us in these circumstances. 
E 
We have heard the learned counsel for the parties very 
carefully. We see that the case of the prosecution is clearly 
r 
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 
F 
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 
G 
-k 
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 
H 
-
. 
650 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS. 
[2011) 1 S.C.R 
A 
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 ric

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