Ram Dular Verma and Others vs State of U.P.

Heard Shri Nagendra Mohan, Shri R.N. Gupta and Shri Manoj Kumar Mishra for the appellants, Shri Dinesh Upadhyay learned Cousnel for the complainant as well as learned Additional Government Advocate for the State.

Since all these appeals arise out of one and the same judgment, as such, the same are being taken up together for the purpose of consideration of bail in pending appeal.

These appeals have been preferred against Judgment and order dated 06.07.2007 passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge (FTC-5) Faizabad in Sessions Trial No. 176 of 2002 (arising out of Case Crime No. 196 of 2002, u/s 147, 302/149 IPC, police station Gosaiganj, district Faizabad) whereby the appellants, namely, Ram Dular Verma, Subhash Verma, Ram Sajeevan, Jia Lal and Jias Kumar have been convicted under Sections 302/149 & 147 IPC and sentenced for maximum term of life imprisonment with fine stipulation.

We have gone through the judgment of the court below as well as lower court record.

It comes out that an FIR was lodged by one Rajit Ram Verma (PW-1) to the effect that due to old enmity going on between the parties with respect to a land of which a suit is pending before the court concerned on 19.07.2002 at about 06.45 pm. the appellants dealt with his father Rama Pati Verma by lathi and danda and inflicted about 14 injuries on his body; on hearing hue and cry of Rama Pati Verma the complainant and his two sisters, namely, Mithlesh and Kamlesh rushed on the spot and tried to rescue their father in which Mithlesh, who has been examined as PW-2, had also received injuries on her head.

We have also gone through the statement of PW-1 (complainant), PW-2 who is an injured witness and post mortem report of the deceased. In the post mortem report, 14 injuries have been shown on the person of the deceased, out of which five injuries are on his head and as per opinion of the doctor the deceased died due to the head injuries.

Argument advanced by learned Counsel for the appellants, at this juncture, are three folds; firstly, one of the accused, namely, Ram Dular Verma is about 65 years of age; secondly, at the most the case will fall within the parameters of Section 304 IPC; and thirdly, the testimony of prosecution witnesses is not reliable, particularly with respect to Rajit Ram Verma (PW-1) who as per defence set up by the appellants, was not present at the spot at the time of incident and had reached there subsequently.

It has also been argued that if Mithlesh, daughter of the deceased, was also injured in the incident, a mention of it ought to have been made in the FIR and charge u/s 323 IPC also ought to have been framed against the appellants, the absence of which makes the prosecution story unreliable. We have carefully gone through the FIR and the testimony of the prosecution witnesses and we do not find any merit in the arguments of learned Counsel for the appellants.

Accordingly, prayer for bail of the appellants is rejected at this juncture.