GIRISH YADAV Vs. JAGDISH YADAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALL the appellants have been held guilty for the offence under Section 396 of the Indian Penal Code by a Common judgment, dated 28th July, 1994 in sessions Trial No. 50 of 1993. Appellant Jagdish Yadav has been awarded death sentence whereas remaining appellants were directed to serve imprisonment for life. Although altogether 24 accused were put on trial, but 13 of them have been acquitted and discharged from the liabilities of bail bonds

(2.) THE case of the prosecution, in brief, is that in the night of 1st January, 1989 while the informant Vijay Kumar (P.W. 5) along with family members in -cluding Mithilesh Yadav (since dead) were sleeping on the roof of their house, Village -Malibigha. District -Jehanabad, a little before the mid -night, all of them woke up on hearing firing gun. In the meantime, about 30/40 dacoits, including these appellant armed with guns rifles scaled over the tiled roof of Jagdeo Yadav and arrived on the roof on the house of the informant. The dacoits thereafter caught hold of them and brought in the courtyard. Then the dacoits entered the house and started looting grains, ornaments, clothes etc. The dacoits also asked Dhaneshwar Yadav to hand over his rifle, but he expressed ignorance, on which appellant Jagdish Yadav fired at Dhaneshwar Yadav with rifle, causing his death.

(3.) THE further case of the prosecution is that immediately after the death of Dhaneshwar Yadav, the accused persons caught hold of Mithilesh Yadav, Surendra Yadav, Awadhesh Yadav, Awadhesh @ Kharha Yadav and Kanhai Yadav and tied up their hands with rope and took them to a nearby field of Baleshwar Yadav, situated hardly at 200 yards from the house of the informant. Mithilesh Yadav somehow the other escaped from the clutches of the accused persons, but remaining four were shot dead, Mithilesh Yadav immediately thereafter arrived at the house and informed the family members about the death of other four deceased persons.