Iqbal Singh vs State of Punjab

M.L. Singhal, J.

By means of this criminal misc. Iqbal Singh, petitioner herein, has claimed bail in case FIR No. 22 dated 10.3.198 registered at P.S. Garhshankar, District Hoshiarpur, under Sections 302/148/149 IPC.

The prosecution case, in brief, is that two sisters of Makhan Singh named Paramjit Kaur and Manjit Kaur of village Alipur, P.S. Garhshankar are married to Joginder Singh and Tarlochan Singh, sons of Kashmir Singh of village Moranwali. Three or four days prior to 10.3.1998, Gurtek Singh alias Teki, son of Joginder Singh, Jaswinder Singh alias Manna, son of Dev Singh, Iqbal Singh son of Jagdish Singh and others named in the FIR, had gone to the house of Paramjit Kaur and abused her and her husband and broken other articles. On 10.3.98, compromise was to be get effected by the respectable of village Moranwali. On that account, Makhan Singh, his younger brother Sukhjiwan Singh alias Sukhi and her sister''s husband Joginder Singh, were going from village Moranwali to village Bhaura Alipur on scooter of their brotherinlaw to bring Harbhajan Singh, father of Makhan Singh. When they reached a point which is at a distance of 200300 mts. short of village Boin on way from village Moranwali to village Bhaura, it was about 4.30 p.m. when Gurtek Singh alias Teki, Jaswinder Singh alias Manna, Iqbal Singh and Jasbir Singh armed with naked Kirpans; and Palwinder alias Inder son of Balbir Singh and Minda, brother of Iqbal Singh, armed with Dang, emerged from the fields abutting the road and on seeing them, they came on the road. Gurtek Singh alias Teki raised Lalkara that Joginder Singh and his wife''s brother should not go alive and simultaneously Gurtek Singh alias Teki gave Kirpan blow on the head of Sukhi who was driving the scooter. Makhan Singh and Joginder Singh ran backwards to save themselves. They continued making entreaties to them while standing at a distance, not to cause any more injuries to Sukhi and within their view, Jaswinder Singh alias Manna gave thrustwise blows with kirpan on the front of left thigh. Sukhi fell on the pucca road and while he was lying fallen, Jasbir Singh gave blows with his kirpan to Sukhi and with a view to warding off the blow, Sukhi raised his left hand and the blow fell on his fingers. Iqbal Singh gave thrustwise blows to Sukhi with kirpan on his testicles and Sukhi began writhing with pain. Palwinder Singh son of Balbir Singh and Minda gave dang blows to Sukhi. Sukhi was taken to Civil Hospital Garhshankar where he succumbed to his injuries.

Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that to Iqbal Singh, injury with Kirpan on the testicles of Sukhi while using Kirpan thrustwise has been attributed. He has submitted that his injury does not find mention in the postmortem report of Sukhi. It is true that in the postmortem report of Sukhi, there is no injury on the testicles. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that if the injury attributed to Iqbal Singh does not find mention in the postmortem report, his participation in the occurrence becomes doubtful. Without going deep into the merits of this submission, I feel that bail should be allowed to the petitioner. So, bail to the petitioner to the satisfaction of learned trial Court.