Satya And Another vs State Of Uttarakhand

Lok Pal Singh, J

This criminal revision is directed against the judgment and order dated 28.04.2010 passed by Sessions Judge, Uttarkashi in Criminal Appeal

No.16/2008, whereby said court has upheld the judgment and order dated 21.02.2008 passed by Judicial Magistrate, Purola in Criminal Case

No.95/2005 to the extent of convicting and sentencing the revisionists under Section 353 IPC.

Prosecution story, in brief, is that the informant Saider Singh is posted as Chowkidar at Exit Chekpost Thathru Market Netwad. On 4.9.2004 at

about 12:30 AM in the night, six persons came in a vehicle bearing no.UP07-F-7637 and asked him to open the barriers. On refusal by the informant,

driver of aforesaid vehicle and driver of UA07-G-5765 entered into the room and committed Marpeet with him. On his alarm, his companions arrived

and saved his life. On the basis of report, F.I.R. was registered against the revisionists/accused. Matter was investigated. On completion of

investigation, a charge-sheet was filed against the revisionists/accused in the court. Thereafter, charge was framed against the revisionists/accused

under sections 323, 353, 458, 504 and 506 of IPC, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. On denial, trial begun. In order to prove its

case, prosecution got examined as many as four prosecution witnesses viz. PW1 Saider Singh, PW2 Shakti Bahadur, PW3 Rajkumar and PW4

Devendra Singh Rawat. After closure of prosecution evidence, statement of the accused/revisionists and others were recorded u/s 313 of Cr.P.C. in

which they denied the allegations levelled against them. However, they did not adduce any evidence in defence. After hearing the parties and on

perusal of evidence, trial court convicted and sentenced the revisionists/accused under Section 323, 353, 458, 504 and 506 of IPC. Feeling aggrieved,

revisionists/accused preferred appeal before the Sessions Judge, Uttarkashi. Learned Sessions Judge, by the impugned judgment and order, convicted

the revisionists/accused under Section 353 of IPC and sentenced them to undergo six months’ simple imprisonment along with a fine of Rs.1,000.

However, the appellate court acquitted the revisionists/accused under Sections 323, 458, 504 and 506 of IPC.

Mr. B.S. Negi, learned counsel for the revisionists would confine his argument qua the quantum of sentence only. He would submit that the incident

relates to the year 2004 and almost 15 years have passed till date. Since then the revisionists are facing mental agony due to the pendency of the

criminal case against them. He also submits that the revisionists have also remained in jail for a considerable period. He, thus, requests the Court to

take a lenient view by reducing the sentence of the revisionists to the period already undergone.

I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the entire record.

Having considering the submissions of learned counsel for the parties and on perusal of the record, I do not find any illegality or perversity in the

impugned judgment and order passed by the appellate court. The appellate court has rightly convicted the revisionist under section 353 IPC. The

conviction of the revisionist is, therefore, affirmed. Now, this Court has to consider the submissions of learned counsel for the revisionists on the point

of sentence only.

At this juncture, it would be apt to reproduce Section 353 IPC, which reads as under:

“353. Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty.- Whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any person being a

public servant in the execution of his duty as such public servant, or with intent to prevent or deter that person from discharging his duty as such public

servant, or in consequence of anything done or attempted to be done by such person in the lawful discharge of his duty as such public servant, shall be

punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.â€​

A bare perusal of aforesaid Section would make it clear that no minimum punishment is prescribed under this Section and it is left to the discretion of

the Court to punish the accused with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Naresh and others vs. State of Uttarakhand (2018) 6 SCC 404 and others has interfered with the order of

High Court, by modifying respective jail sentences of three accused to that already undergone, while enhancing fine amount awarded by High Court,

and also, acquitting the fourth. Relevant paragraphs of the judgment are extracted hereunder:

“14. This we are inclined to do for the following reasons:

14.1. First, the incident is of 1998 and we are in 2018. In other words, it is now almost 20 years have passed that this litigation is pending in various

Courts.

14.2. Second, there were seven injuries noticed by the doctor on the body of injured-Tej Singh but the injuries noticed were not very serious in nature

as would be clear from the Doctor's report mentioned above.

14.3. Third, Tej Singh survived leaving no disability much less permanent on his body due to causing of the injuries and lived for twenty years after the

date of alleged incident and died recently in last week as was stated by learned counsel for the appellants.

14.4. Fourth, all the appellants(accused) have undergone almost one year of jail sentence including remission out of the total jail sentence awarded by

the High Court except appellant No.2 â€" Suresh(A-2), who underwent around three months.

14.5. Fifth, all the appellants were first offender and were not found involved in any criminal activity in the last 20 years, though remained on bail

throughout and lastly, appellant Nos. 2 and 3 are reported to be in Government Service.â€​

Having considered the submissions of learned counsel for the revisionists on the point of sentence as well as in view of the dictum of Hon’ble

Apex Court in the case of Naresh (supra), this Court is also of the view that no useful purpose would be served by sending the revisionists to jail after

a lapse of about 15 years of the incident, as such the sentence deserves to be reduced to the period already undergone along with a fine of Rs.10,000/-

.

Accordingly, revision is partly allowed by affirming the conviction of the revisionists/accused under Sections 353 of IPC. However, for the reasons

stated above, sentence part of the impugned judgment and order is modified to the extent that each of the revisionists are sentenced for the period of

sentence already undergone alongwith a fine of Rs. 10,000/-(Ten Thousand) each which will be deposited by them before the trial court within a

period of two months from today. The revisionists will be entitled to adjustment of the fine already deposited by them, if any.

Let a copy of this judgment be sent to the trial court for ensuring compliance. Lower court record be also sent back.