LexSTATE DELHI (ADMINISTRATION) versus LAXMAN KUMAR & ORS.
Open in Lexace · Ask the AI about this caseJudgment (excerpt)
A ll c D 898 STATE DELHI (ADllINISTRATION) v. I.AXMAN KOMAR & ORS. SEPTEMBER 23; 1985 [A.N, SEN AND RANGARATH MISRA, JJ.] A. Murder by burning - No eye witness to testify the act of setting fire to the deceased or to the defence version of deceased's saree catching fire accidently, except the oral testi-· mony of witnesses who ran to the spot soon after hearing the cries for help by the deceased, the three statements implicating the accused as the perpetrators of the crime made by the deceased before admission in the hospital, the conduct of the accused when the deceased's clothes were aflame, the alleged torture of the deceased for sometime preceding the occurrence over demands for cash and goods in kind and other circumstances on record - Circumstantial evidence corroborated by other evidence Appreciation of evidence taking judicial notice of facts Sections 3, 11, 55 and 114 of the Evidence Act, Indian Penal Code section 302. B. Dying declarations, relevance of - They can be used as E corroborative evidence and need not be totally rejected - Evidence Act section 32 (1). F G c. Appeal against acquittal and appeal against conviction, scope of and the powers of the Supreme Court to-intervene under Article 136 of the Constitution. D. Sentence - Imposition of proper punishment and passing a sentence while interfering in an appeal against acquittal by the Supreme Court - Time lag may be one of the factors to be consideted. Shakuntala and Srinivas have four sons Subhash, Laxman, Vinod and Ram Avtar and two daughters. They ordinarily live at Barot about 50 miles from Delhi alongwith their two daughters. Subhash and his wife· Madhu (DW5), are school teachers at Delhi and have two minor children. Sometime in May or June, 1979 these brothers came to live in ground floor flat No. 9B of the Janata flats in Ashok Vihar area. They purchased the First Floor Flat No. 90 previously occupied by Deven Dass and his wife . Ishwari r f STATE v. LAXMAN KUMAR 899 Devi (PW4) in 1980 and on their request Deven Dass moved over to A Flat No. 280 in the same srea in September October'80. On February 16, 1980 Lruonan Kumar was married to Sudha, tbe deceased and they lived in one of the rooms in flat No. 9B. Sudha was in the f.;mly way and was expecting to deliver a child towards the end of ~he first week of December, 1980. A little after 9· p.m. on December 1, 1980, on hearing a lady's voice crying "llachao Bachao" (Save 0 Save) from flat No. 9B, the neighbours like Jaapal Singh (PWl) ·satish Chopra (PW2) and Uhwari Devi (PW4) ran to the flat and Tarsem Jain (PWS) who was near about also came there. PWl saw Lruonan standing at the entrance door and attempting to close it while Subhash was stand- ing with his hand on the latch of the door which opened to the courtyard. PWl and others who had collected there forced their way inside and saw Sudha in s, standing position but .aflame. They attempted to·extinguish the fire first by pulling out ·the saree from the body of the lady, put a gunny bag lying nearby on the burning body and later wrapped her up with a blanket brought by PW 2 Satish Chopra. When, after 'extinguishing the fire, they brought Sudha to 'the room. where Shakuntala mother-in-law was standing,- Sudha made a statement to the effect that it was her mo~her-in-law who had set her fire after pouring kerosene on her body. Soon a taxi was brought and the respondents accused took Sudha for treatment to the Hindu Rao. Hospital. While betng shif- ted to the taxi, Sudha made another statement to the same effect aa to the authorship of the crime. Again, when on the way they picked up Gayatri, one of the ·sisters of Sudha and PW3 and her husband, she repeated the allegation against her lj!Other-in-law on seeing her sister PW3 in the taxi. At the suggestion of PW3 Sudha was taken to St. Stephen's hospital where Sudha was being looked after for her pre,,,,.ternity care. The witnesses on their own, believing that Sudha was being taken to Hindu Rao Hospital, went there and waited for some time but when they found that Sudha was not being brought there, they returned to their residences. However, soon after the distress cry for help, a telephone message to the.police Control Room with telephone No. 100, that a lady had been set on fire was conveyed and on this First Infor- mation having been duly monitored to the mobile police van around the area in question, P
Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.