MAHENDRA DAYAL, J. - (1.) THE appellants have been convicted by the Special Judge SC/ST Act, Gonda in S.T.No.118 of 1996 decided on 15.10.2003, whereby both of them have been convicted under Sections 323/34, 325/34, 504 IPC and Section 3(i)(x) SC/ST Act. I have heard Sri Vinod Kumar Singh, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellants and the learned A.G.A. for the State.
(2.) THE prosecution story, in short, is that on 31.07.1994, at about 4.00 p.m. when the informant Ram Uggar was in his filed, the appellants came there armed with lathi and started assaulting him. When the informant raised alarm, the village people rushed to the spot and on seeing the village people, both the appellants ran way from the place of occurrence. According to the informant, the appellants had a previous enmity with each other from before the occurrence. The appellants not only threatened and used abusive language while assaulting the informant, but also humiliated and insulted him by using cast based language. The police on the basis of written application of the informant, registered a case against the appellants and after completion of investigation, submitted charge -sheet against them. During the course of the investigation, the informant was sent to the hospital for medical examination? and as per the medical examination report, two injuries were found on the body of the informant. The first injury was in the nature of contusion in front of the nose and the second injury was an abrasion on the base of the nose. The injury no.1, according to the doctor, was grievous and as such, he referred the informant to the Radiology Department and on x -ray the nasal bone was found fractured.?
(3.) IN order to prove the charge against the appellants, the prosecution examined three witnesses and on the basis of evidence on record, the learned trial court found the appellants guilty of the offence and convicted them, as aforesaid. Sri Vinod Kumar Singh, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellants has submitted that? no offnece under SC/St Act was made out against any of the appellants because there was no allegation in the FIR that the informant was a member of SC/ST community. There is also no mention in the FIR that the informant was insulted or humiliated for the reason that informant was a member of SC/ST. The submission is that in order to attract the offence under SC/ST Act, the basic ingredient is that the accused must? insult or humiliate a person belonging to SC/ST community with intention to intimidate him within people view. Since the alleged occurrence has taken place on account of previous enmity, there was, therefore, no intention of the appellants to have insulted the informant for the reason that the informant was a member of SC/ST community.;