VINOD PRASAD,J. - (1.) THE State has come up in appeal against the judgment and order dated 19 -2 -1981 passed by Sessions Judge, Basti, in S.T. No. 350 of 1980 State v. Satyendra @ Durga & Ors., by which he has acquitted the accused respondents namely, Satyendra @ Durga, Indra and Deo Nath for the offence under Sections 302/34, I.P.C., Police Station Kulwari, District Basti.
(2.) THE prosecution allegations were that Shiv Bansh Pandey (deceased) was the resident and Pradhan of Village Semra Chigan, P.S. Kalwari, District Basti. There was dispute of Pradhani between him and accused respondents. Four years earlier, the respondents accused got him suspended from the post of Pradhan but the deceased obtained a stay order through a writ petition from the High Court. However, accused respondent Satyendra got himself declared as Pradhan and started looking after the work of that office. Deceased had filed a complaint in the District Court at Basti against this wrong usurpation of office by accused Satyendra @ Durga. On the date of incident i.e. 2 -6 -1980 deceased left his house on the cycle to do pairvi in the aforesaid case. Soon thereafter the informant Vishwa Nath Pandey (P.W. 1), son of deceased, also started for his school at Nagar Bazar, on cycle, where he was a teacher and was accompanied by Parmatma Prasad (P.W. 3) who was to go to the Court to give evidence in the complaint case lodged by Shiv Bansh Pandey (deceased) and they were 100 paces behind him. At about 8.30 a.m. when deceased reached near the cemetery situated towards the south of the village Mantara, all of a sudden, the three accused respondents -Satyendra alias Durga armed with knife, Indra Deo and Deo Nath, armed with lathies, who were hiding behind Munja bushes, appeared on the scene and Indra Deo and Deo Nath started belaboring the deceased with lathies as a result of which he fell down and then Satyendra alias Durga assaulted him with knife. Witnessing this, P.W. 1 Vishwanath and P.W. 3 Parmatma Prasad raised hue and cry on which P.W. 4 Rameshwar and 5 -6 people reached on the spot and the assailants ran away towards south. P.W. 1 informant put the injured on the cot and was carrying him to the District hospital Bahadurpur when, near the hospital, the deceased breathed his last. Leaving his corpse in front of the hospital, the informant scribed the First Information Report, covered a distance of 5 Kms. and lodged it at Police Station Kalwari on the same day 2 -6 -1980 at 10.30 a.m. P.W. 2 Head Constable Rama Kant Dubey, prepared the chik report and made the GD entry registering the case under Section 302, IPC. In the absence of Station Officer, Sub -Inspector Bhola Yadav (not examined as witness in the trial by the prosecution) started the investigation. He conducted inquest on the dead -body, prepared other relevant documents and dispatched the dead -body for post -mortem. He made the recoveries of blood, cycle etc. and also prepared the site plan and inspection note (Ex. Ka 5 to 13). The autopsy on the dead -body of the deceased was conducted by Dr. S.G. Tekriwal on 3 -6 -1980 at 3 p.m. The doctor found total fifteen injuries out of which two were abrasions on bridge of nose and eye brow, eight contusions on upper arm, fore -arm, back, buttock, right thigh and on leg, one lacerated wound on right fore -arm, one incised wound 25 cm. below knee joint, two multiple abraded contusions and multiple contusions on right leg and left leg. The accused admitted the genuineness of the post -mortem report and dispensed with the formal proof of it by noting dated 8 -1 -1981. So, the prosecution did not examine the doctor who had conducted the post -mortem. P.W. 5 Station Officer Ram Nath took up the investigation on 4 -6 -1980 and after completing the same submitted the charge -sheet (Ex. Ka 14) against the accused in the Court on 2 -7 -1980.The accused were tried under Section 302/34, IPC after framing charge on 19 -12 -1980.
(3.) THE prosecution examined total five witnesses to bring home the guilt of accused out of which three were eye -witnesses P.W. 1 informant Vishwanath, P.W. 3 Parmatma Prasad and P.W. 4 Ramesar. P.W. 2 was the Head Constable who had recorded the FIR and had prepared the GD entry and P.W. 5 is the Station Officer, the second I.O. who has submitted charge -sheet against the accused in Court.;