Palok Basu, J. - (1.) SHIV Singh, the sole appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 3036 of 1979 and Kashmir Singh and Mahesh, the two appellants in connected Criminal Appeal no. 3037 of 1979, have challenged their conviction and sentence, under Section 396 IPC, to life imprisonment awarded by the Additional Sessions Judge, Farrukhabad, in Session Trial no. 187 of 1978.
(2.) THE charge against the appellants was that they alongwith two others, namely Ramesh and Veerpal, committed armed dacoity at the house of Ram Chandra in the night between 18th and 19th of April, 1977. THEy first set fire to Lalman by pouring kerosene oil upon him and then looted the ornaments and other articles from the house of Ram Chandra and thereby committed an offence under section 396 IPC. Ram Chandra is said to have lodged an FIR of the incident on 19-4-1977 at 9.45 a.m. alleging therein that the aforesaid incident had happened around or after mid-night of 18/19th of April, 1977 at his residence in village Kundpura, police station Kamalganj, district Farrukhabad, In the FIR the informant has named three appellant and two acquitted accused Ramesth and Veerpal. In the instant case the prosecution has examined in all seven witnesses. The trial court had summoned Smt.Phulla as CW 1 who happened to be the wife of PW 1 Ram Chandra.
(3.) DR. S. C. Govil (PW 2) had performed the postmortem examination on the dead body of Lalman on 24-4-1977 at 4.30 P.M. and had found second and third degree burn injuries' on the body of Lalman. Pw 3 Sheo Sagar Bajpai is the Head Moharrir, who was posted at police station Kamalganj at the relevant time. He alleges that he registered the case under Sections 395/397 IPC initially and vide entry no. 7 made at 20.50 hours on 20-4-1977 the same was converted into one under Sec. 396 IPC because in the meantime informantion was conveyed that Lalman had died.;