NIRMALA BAI DEVIDAS CHAVHAN Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment shall decide Criminal Appeal Nos. 502-507 of 2023, preferred by the informant, and Criminal Appeal Nos. 508-513 of 2023, preferred by the State of Maharashtra, both of which arise out of the common judgment dtd. 2/2/2022 ("Impugned Judgment") passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench ("High Court"), in Criminal Appeal Nos. 559, 560, 561, 562, 570 and 576 of 2018. By Impugned Judgment, the High Court, upon a reappreciation of the entire evidence, reversed the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dtd. 10/8/2018 passed by the In-charge Additional Sessions Judge, Mangrulpir (Camp at Washim) ("trial court"), in Sessions Trial No. 44 of 2014, whereby twenty of the accused had been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life, the High Court allowed all six appeals and acquitted them of the offences charged.

(2.) The prosecution case has its genesis in an incident alleged to have occurred on 18/3/2014, the day of the Holi festival, at about 4:00 p.m., at Naik Nagar, Manora, District Washim, within the jurisdiction of Police Station Manora. On the same day, at 17:15 hours, First Information Report No. 38 of 2014 ( "FIR ") came to be registered upon the oral report of Nirmala Bai Devidas Chavhan, the Appellant in the first set of appeals and the mother of the deceased Avinash, for offences punishable under Ss. 302, 307, 147, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ("IPC"), read with Sec. 135 of the Bombay Police Act, 1951.

(3.) It is the case of the prosecution that at about 1:00 p.m. on that day the deceased Avinash had gone to Somnath Nagar to seek the blessings of his grandmother, where the accused Janardhan (A-1) and Milind (A-22) were playing a DJ and Avinash asked the DJ to be stopped as his grandmother was unwell which culminated into a quarrel, in the course of which, according to the prosecution witnesses, reference was made to the Zilla Parishad election of the year 2013 and a threat to kill was held out.