- (1.) The petitioner, a truck driver, was convicted under Sections 279 and 304-A of the Indian Penal Code. Separate sentences thereunder were imposed on him as are evident from the judgment and order under revision.
(2.) Broadly stated, the case against the petitioner was that on February 12, 1985, at about 6.12 p.m. he was "driving his truck No. DEG-739, admittedly owned by him, in the bazar at Samrala. His direction was from Chandigarh to Ludhiana and he was said to be driving it rashly and negligently. In that process he hit scooter No. HPK-1829 which was being driven by Baljit Singh. By the truck hitting against the scooter, Baljit Singh deceased fell down. After causing the accident, the offending truck hit Charanjit Singh too, causing him injuries. The occurrence was witnessed by Parminder Singh and Balbir Singh, the witnesses standing close-by, besides Charanjit Singh, injured. The deceased was declared dead at the hospital. The culprit of the crime in the First Information Report recorded at the instance of Parminder Singh PW-5 was described but the truck No. of the offending truck being DEG-739 was positively mentioned.
(3.) After investigation, the police put up the petitioner for trial. At the trial, the prosecution witnesses identified the accused-petitioner as the person driving truck No. DEG-739. The plea of the petitioner that he was on that day at Gauhati could not be substantiated despite the transit pass Exhibit D-1 produced by him for the purpose. The learned Magistrate, Samrala, as also the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, concurrently took the view that there was no reason for the prosecution witnesses to have wrongly mentioned the number of the truck of the petitioner to be the offending truck and have named the accused facing trial as the culprit of the crime. The Courts below also took the concurrent view that the plea of alibi had remained unproved, for no witness worth the name was examined by the defence, either to prove Exhibit D-1 or even to produce the log book of the truck, from which it could be indicated that it was on a business trip elsewhere. The strength of the prosecution and the weakness of the defence led to the concurrent finding that the petitioner was guilty of the crime.;