- (1.) Accused appellants Rajveer, Dammo and Roop Ram named above were convicted by Sri K.K. Sharma, the then IVth Additional Sessions Judge, Mathura vide his judgment and order dated 5-9-1980 under Section 395, I.P.C. and were sentenced to undergo R.I. for a period of five years each. Aggrieved of the said judgment and order they have come up in appeal before this Court.
(2.) Since both these appeals arose out of one and the same judgment, they are being disposed of by this judgment as follows :-The prosecution claimed that on the intervening night of 31-1-1979/1-2-1979, at about 12.30 a.m., an armed dacoity was committed at the house of Om Prakash, P.W. 1 in village Chandpur, Police Station Nauzhil, District Mathura, in which cash, clothes, gold and silver ornaments were looted away by the bandits. A lantern was burning inside the house of Om Prakash, PW 1 at the time of occurrence. Hearing the noise of commision of dacoity, villagers arrived at the spot who had torches in their hands. The heap of straw was burnt at two places by the villagers which created sufficient light at the spot and which enabled the villagers to see the faces of the bandits. The prosecution further claimed that an encounter between the villagers and dacoits had also taken place while dacoits were running after committing dacoity. In order to threaten the villagers the bandits had thrown away hand graned which exploded and caused a number of injuries to the various villagers. The dacoits made good their escape. The prosecution maintained that the Kanchan son of Revti of village Chandpur was one of the bandits.
(3.) The First Information Report about this occurrence was lodged by Sri Om Prakash, PW 1 at police station Nauzhil on 1-2-1979 at 9.50 a.m. The police station Nauzhil lay at a distance of about five miles from village Chandpur, the place of occurrence. The accused Kanchan (who has been since acquitted by the trial judge himself) was named as an accused person in the FI.R. No description about the facial expression etc. of any other bandits who was 7.0 mark were mentioned in the F.I.R.;