- (1.) Sajjan Singh (appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 137 of 1997, Dule Singh and Meharban Singh (appellants in Criminal Appeal No. 138 of 1997 are aggrieved by the judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High court convicting them for offences under S. 302/149 Indian Penal Code and sentencing them to undergo imprisonment for life.
(2.) Originally before the Sessions court, there were II accused being tried including the appellants. Two of the accused were also charged for offence under Section 404 Indian Penal Code. After the conclusion of the trial, the Sessions Judge acquitted Banesingh and convicted rest of the 10 sentencing each of them to life imprisonment. These 10 went in appeal before the High court. The State also filed appeals against the acquittal of Banesingh. Appeals were heard by a division bench comprising of Shukia and Chitre, JJ. Both the Judges upheld the acquittal of Banesingh and dismissed the appeal filed by the State. So far as the 10 appellants were concerned, the Judges were divided in opinion. While Chitre, J. gave his opinion that the conviction of all of them should be upheld and their appeal dismissed, Shukia J. felt that conviction of three of them should be upheld and the rest acquitted. Thematter was then referred to a third Judge, Prasad, J. under Section 392 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short "the Code") who by judgment dated 24/2/1996 upheld the conviction of six persons and dismissed their appeal while the remaining four were acquitted. Out of the six appellants whose appeals have been dismissed by the High court, three are before us. The remaining three, it appears, did not appeal. As to how these persons were armed as per the prosecution and how the trial ended in conviction and/or acquittal can be described appropriately as per the statement given below:
(3.) The incident out of which these proceedings arose occurred on 30-11- 1986 at about 10. 20 a. m. in Village Baniyakhedi within the jurisdiction of Police Station Depalpur, District Indore in the State of Madhya Pradesh. Prosecution alleged that II persons in conspiracy with each other and ten of them armed with various weapons caused the death of one Abdul Hadi @ Munna Pehalwan (Munnabhai). First information report of the crime was lodged at about 1. 00 o'clock on 30/11/1986 itself by Gulamahmad Khan @ Pyaremian (Pyaremian).;