- (1.) Appellant-Accused Pardeep Kumar was held guilty and was convicted for the commission of offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, "I.P.C.") and was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- and in default of payment of fine to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months vide judgment of conviction and order on quantum of sentence dated 21.04.2010. It was ordered that the period of imprisonment already undergone by the convict during investigation and trial shall be set off from the substantive sentence. The complaint which led to initiation of criminal proceedings against the appellant-accused was lodged, unfortunate for him, by his own father Rameshwar resident of village Siwah, District Panipat. In his statement which formed the basis of First Information Report, complainant Rameshwar stated that on 22.08.2008 his younger son Pardeep had gone to the house of his (complainant's) niece Babli, who was married in village Patwarpur, District Rohtak. He borrowed an amount of Rs.20,000/- from her. Out of the said amount, he gave Rs.13,000/- to Vijay Financier whose office was situated at Sanoli Road. An amount of Rs.5000/- was given by Pardeep to his mother Angrejo and in that manner he was left with an amount of Rs.2000/-. He spent Rs.500/- on some household articles and the remaining amount of Rs.1500/- was forcibly snatched from him by Parveen, his elder brother which led to an exchange of hot words between the two. Parveen was addicted to liquor and other bad vices. After quarreling with his brother, Parveen went away from the house. He returned home after some time and being under the influence of liquor went to sleep in his room.
(2.) It was further stated by complainant Rameshwar that since due to ill health he was feeling suffocation, he put his cot in the courtyard for sleeping. At about 12'O clock in the midnight Pardeep came from outside and went to the room of Parveen. An axe was lying in that room. Pardeep picked up the axe and gave a blow with the same on the head of Parveen who cried out. Parveen sustained injury on his head which started bleeding perfusedly. Hearing the commotion, Angejo, his wife, also woke up and saw Pardeep running away with an axe in his hand. In the end, the complainant added that since Pardeep nourished a grievance against his brother Parveen for snatching money from him, he inflicted injury on Parveen with the axe which led to death of Parveen at the spot.
(3.) The appellant-accused was arrested and during interrogation he made a disclosure statement in pursuance of which he got recovered the axe used by him in commission of crime which was bloodstained and was taken in possession by preparing a memo. On completion of investigation and other formalities the appellant was challaned and sent to the Court for trial. He was charge-sheeted for the commission of offence under Section 302 I.P.C., to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. As many as ten witnesses were examined by the prosecution to substantiate the charges, namely PW1 Rameshwar, PW2 Sub Inspector Mahabir Singh, PW3 EHC Jagbir Singh, PW4 Assistant Sub Inspector Dharampal, PW5 Constable Mahender Singh, PW6 Dr. Arvind Kumar, PW7 ASI Shri Krishan, PW8 ASI Shri Niwas, PW9 Ram Niwas, Retd. D.S.P. and PW10 Angrejo. After closure of prosecution evidence, in his statement recorded under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, "Cr.P.C."), the appellant-accused denied the incriminating evidence of the prosecution put to him and pleaded false implication.;