ARORA, J. - (1.) THIS appeal is directed against the judgment dated October 30, 1985, passed by the Sessions Judge, Merta, by which the learned Sessions Judge convicted and sentenced the accused under Section 302, I. P. C.
(2.) APPELLANT Dev Kishan was tried by the learned Sessions Judge for the offence under Section 302 I. P. C. for committing the murder of his wife at 9. 00 p. m. on November 25, 1977, in the house of her father, situated in village Gachhipura. The report of the incident was lodged at Police Station, Gachhipura, on November 20, 1977, at 9. 20 p. m. by Ramdeo-the brother of the deceased Sushila. The prosecution, in support of its case, examined 17 witnesses and the accused, in his defence, examined four witnesses. The learned trial Court, after trial, convicted the accused under Section 302 I. P. C. and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 200/- and in default of payment of fine further to undergo two months' rigorous imprisonment. It is against this judgement dated October 30, 1985, passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Merta convicting and sentencing the accused-appellant Dev Kishan that the appellant has preferred this appeal. Heard learned counsel for the appellant and the learned Public Prosecutor. It is contended by the learned counsel for the appellant that the learned lower Court committed an error in convicting and sentencing the accused-appellant on the basis of the evidence produced by the prosecution, which is based on the statements of the highly interested and wholly unreliable witnesses and no conviction can be based on the testimony of such type of interested and unreliable witnesses. It is further submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the prosecution has failed to proved and explain the injuries found on the person of the accused and the appellant, therefore, deserves to be acquitted on this count alone. Alternatively, it is argued that the appellant, at the relevant time was insane and by reason of unsoundness of the mind, he was unable to know the nature of the act what he was doing and, therefore, his case falls squarely within the provisions of Section 84, I. P. C. and the appellant deserves to be acquitted on that score, also. The learned Public Prosecutor, on the other hand, has supported the judgement passed by the learned lower Court and has submitted that the learned lower Court has rightly appreciated the evidence on record and has rightly convicted and sentenced the accused as the case against the accused stands proved beyond any reasonable manner of doubt. He has, also, stated that the prosecution has satisfactorily explained the injuries on the person of the accused-appellant and has submitted that the appellant was not insane at the time of committing the offence. We have considered the rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties. The prosecution, in support of its case, has examined 17 witnesses. The nature of the evidence, produced by the prosecution, consists of the evidence of the three eye-witnesses, namely, PW 6 Ridh Karan, the father of the deceased, PW 11 Nena Ram, the uncle of the deceased and PW 13 Rameshwar Lal, the brother of the deceased, who were present at the time of the occurrence in the house where the incident took place. This evidence of the three eye-witnesses sought to be corroborated by the evidence of PW 1 Smt. Santosh-aunt of the deceased and PW 5 Smt. Ganpati, the mother of the deceased, who reached at the scene of the occurrence immediately after the cries were raised by the deceased and on coming there, they saw the accused armed with a knife, which was stained with blood. The other set of the witnesses, produced by the prosecution to support the prosecution case, consists of PW 2 Ali Hussain, PW 3 Nav Ratan and PW 7 Ramdeen-the neighbourers, who came to the scene of the occurrence immediately after hearing the cries and when the accused opened the main doors of the house and came out armed with a knife, with which he killed Smt. Sushila then witnesses saw the accused coming out of the house. PW 9 Gafoor Chand and PW 15 Suwa Lal are the brother-in-law (Saadus) of the accused, who were sitting in the house of Tulsi Ram arid came there after hearing the cries and reached at the place of the occurrence alongwith Ali Hussain, Nav Ratan and Ramdeen when the accused came out of the house after opening the main doors. The other set of witnesses, produced by the prosecution consists of the evidence of four motbir witnesses, namely, PW 4 Rama Ram, who is a witness to the arrest of the accused and the seizure of the knife; PW 8 Kishore Singh, PW 10 Tulsi Ram (in whose house the accused, Gafoor Chand and Suwa Lal were sitting) and PW 12 Chhotu, who took the blood-stained plaster of the room, where Smt. Sushila was murdered. PW 4 is Dr. Shiv Prakash, who conducted the post-mortem on the dead-body of deceased Smt. Sushila and, also, examined the injuries of accused-appellant as well as Suwa Lal. PW 16 is Lal Mohammad (Police Constable), who recorded the First Information Report at the instance of PW 13 Ramseshwar Lal and PW 17 Laxman Singh is the Investigating Officer, who was the Incharge of Police Station, Gachhipura.
(3.) PW 6 Ridh Karan the father of the deceased Smt. Sushila has stated that Dev Kishan used to ill-treat his (accused's) wife and used to give beatings to her and, therefore, she left her husband's house and came to stay with him about a year before the date of the incident and was living with him for the last one year. She had joined service as a teacher in village Doobariya, which is at a distance of one kilometre from Gachhipura and she used to go to the school in the morning and return in the evening. Dev Kishan came three to four times prior to this occurrence to his house and threatened Smt. Sushila and him that if they will not send Sushila to his house then he would cut her ears and nose and they will have to face the consequences. His son Ramdeo was to be married on November 27, 1977 (Migsar Sudi Dooz ). On November 25, 1977 (Kartik Purnima), his sons-in-law Suwa Lal, Gafoor Chand and the accused Dev Kishan came there. On that day, he was at his house and was doing the work concerning the marriage. His house and the shop are situated in the same premises. All his three sons-in-law were sitting with him and his son Rameshwar Lal was, also, present there. Accused Dev Kishan was sitting in the shop and Smt. Sushila was doing the house-hold work. In the night, Smt. Sushila went out-side to call the ladies of the adjoining houses for singing the marriage songs. When Smt. Sushila returned and went to her room to change her clothes, at that time he was sitting in the Tibara. The accused, who was also, sitting in the Tibara, got-up, closed the main entrance and entered in the room, where Smt. Sushila had gone to change her clothes. Immediately after entering the room, he took out a knife from the pocket of his pant caught hold of the hair-tail of Sushila and inflicted injuries with the knife on the neck of Smt. Sushila. He repeated the knife-blows on the neck and arm-pit and other parts of the body of Smt. Sushila. On receiving the injuries. Smt. Sushila fell down on the col. He tried to caught hold of the accused, but the accused ran away. He alongwith his younger brother and son followed the accused. The accused, after opening the doors, came out-side the house. Rameshwar's mother and Santosh W/o Nanu Ram, also, came there and all started crying. The accused ran away. When the accused came out-side the house, Gafoor Chand, Suwa Lal, Nav Ratan, Khem Singh and Ali Hussain came there and tried to caught-hold of the accused. The accused tried to get himself rescued and inflicted injury by knife, whereupon Gafoor Chand took a Lathi from there and in order to snatch the knife, inflicted injury with the lathi to the accused. Thereafter Rameshwar went to the Police Station and lodged the report. The police came there, arrested the accused, seized the knife from the possession of the accused, recovered the dead-body and prepared other Memos. Almost identical and similar is the statements of PW 11 Nenu Ram the brother of Ridh Karan and the uncle of the deceased, who was, also, present in the house and who had seen the occurrence and was living in the same house, as well as that of PW 13 Rameshwar, the brother of the deceased, who was living in the same house, and was present there and who lodged the report of the incident. A lengthy cross-examination was conducted by the learned counsel for the accused, but nothing could be elicited from them which may shake the credibility of the evidence of these witnesses. It was a night time at about 9. 00 p. m. and only two days were left in the marriage and the presence of those persons at the relevant time, i. e. , at about 9. 00 p. m. , was most natural. The witnesses were present there and had seen the occurrence and had narrated the fact what they had actually seen and how the incident occurred. We have no hesitation to believe the evidence of these three eye- witnesses. The evidence of these three eye-witnesses finds support from the evidence of PW 1 Smt. Santosh and PW 5 Smt. Ganpati, who came there immediately after the occurrence after hearing the cries of Smt. Sushila and saw the accused standing near Smt. Sushila with a blood-stained open knife in his hand and with blood-stained clothes. They, also, saw Smt. Sushila in an injured condition lying half on the cot and half on the earth. Their presence at the scene of the occurrence was most natural as they were the ladies who were residing in that very house. The evidence of these witnesses further finds support from the statement of PW 2 Ali Hussain, PW 3 Nav Ratan, PW 7 Ramdeen and PW 10 Tulsi Ram, who are the neighbourers and who came immediately after hearing the cries at the house of Ridh Karan and found the accused coming out of the house after opening the doors and was armed with a knife, which was stained with blood and he tried to run away, but was not permitted by these witnesses and was caught hold of by them. Their evidence further finds support from the evidence of PW 9 Gafoor Chand and PW 15 Suwa Lal who are the brother-in-law (Saadus) of the accused Dev Kishan and who had come there to attend the marriage of their brother-in-law (looser ). Ridh Karan had made arrangements for the stay of his sons-in-law including Gafoor Chand, Suwa Lal and Dev Kishan in the house of Tulsi Ram and they had left the house of Ridha Karan only before 15 minutes of the incident and had gone to the house of Tulsi Ram after taking their meals. They, also, asked the accused to come there but the accused told that they should proceed and he would come within 15 minutes. A careful scrutiny of the evidence of these witnesses clearly shows that it was the accused, who has come to attend the marriage of his brother-in-law and who assaulted Smt. Sushila, inflicted injuries on her and killed her. A careful scrutiny of the evidence of these witnesses clearly shows that they are the most natural and reliable witnesses and they have stated what they had actually seen and the learned lower Court has not committed any illegality in placing reliance over their testimony. The next question, which requires consideration is to whether the prosecution has been able to explain the injuries on the person of the accused ? The accused received as many as eight injuries. According to the prosecution case, Ridh Karan (PW 6) tried to caught hold of the accused and tried to rescue his daughter from the accused, while he was inflicting injuries to her, but he could not caught hold of the accused and the accused ran-away armed with the knife and waiving the same to threaten the witnesses and after opening the doors, came out side the house and then he was apprehended by PW 2 Ali Hussain, PW 3 Nenu Ram, PW 7 Ramdeen, PW 9 Gafoor Chand and PW 15 Suwa Lal and Gafoor Chand inflicted injuries on the person of the accused in order to dis-arm him so that he may not inflict injuries to any other person. According to the prosecution, the injuries were inflicted to the accused by Gafoor Chand. Thus, the injuries found on the person of the accused have been properly explained by the prosecution. The last but the most important question, which requires consideration is whether at the time of the incident the accused was in a fit condition of mind or was insane? According to Section 84 I. P. C. , nothing is an offence which is done by a person, who at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law. Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code deals with the acts of a person of unsound mind and lays down the legal test of responsibility in case of alleged unsoundness of mind. It is only unsoundness of mind which materially inpaires the cognitive faculties of the mind that can form a ground for exemption from criminal responsibility. In order to get the benefit of the provisions of Section 84 I. P. C. on the ground of insanity, it has to be proved that at the time of committing the act, the accused was labouring under such defect of reason from disease of mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know what he was doing, that he did not know it was wrong. It is not every impairment of mental process or any deviation from the recognized standards, which will ipso-facto exempt the accused from its criminal responsibility and will earn the accused the verdict of not guilty, but he must be a man who, at the time of committing the act, is totally deprived of his understanding and memory and does not know what he is doing. ;