Gujarat High Court
Magru Alta Prasad Rajbhar – Yadav vs State Of Gujarat on 20 January, 2025
Author: Ilesh J. Vora
Bench: Ilesh J. Vora
NEUTRAL CITATION
R/CR.A/1453/2013 JUDGMENT DATED: 20/01/2025
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/CRIMINAL APPEAL (AGAINST CONVICTION) NO. 1453 of 2013
FOR APPROVAL AND SIGNATURE:
HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE ILESH J. VORA
and
HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK
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Approved for Reporting Yes No
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MAGRU ALTA PRASAD RAJBHAR - YADAV
Versus
STATE OF GUJARAT
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Appearance:
MR HEMANT RAVAL, ADVOCATE FOR MS KD PARMAR(589) for the
Appellant(s) No. 1
MR JAY MEHTA, APP for the Opponent(s)/Respondent(s) No. 1
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CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE ILESH J. VORA
and
HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M.
PRACHCHHAK
Date : 20/01/2025
ORAL JUDGMENT
(PER : HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE ILESH J. VORA)
1. The present appeal is filed by the appellant – original
accused under Section 374 of Code of Criminal Procedure,
1973) (‘Cr.P.C.’, in short) against the judgment of
conviction and order of sentence dated 12.08.2013 passed
by the learned Sessions Judge, Valsad in Sessions Case
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No. 43 of 2010, wherein, the appellant came to be tried for
offences punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal
Code, 1860) (‘IPC‘, for short). At the end of the trial, the
appellant came to be convicted and he was sentenced to
rigorous imprisonment for life and fine of Rs.1000/-, in
default simple imprisonment for one month.
2. Facts and circumstances giving rise to file this appeal
are that, on 03.06.2010, the appellant-accused raising
dispute about allocation of duty, killed deceased Atul
Singh, by using iron rod. The deceased was Supervisor,
working in Dyeing Department of Alok Company, Vapi,
State: Gujarat, whereas, the appellant-accused working as
a Daily Labourer. The accused was assigned the work for
operating hydraulic truck which was used to transport the
goods from one department to another department.
Before 3 days of the incident, the deceased Atul Singh
being a Supervisor, assigned the work of helper to the
appellant-accused which he refused to do, as a result of
which, despite of his presence in the company, he had
been shown as absent in the daily register of the
labourers. The accused made the complaint to Senior
Manager Mr. Malhotra – PW.11, however, he was of the
opinion that, whatever work allocated by the supervisor,
should be obeyed. The accused was not happy with the
conduct and attitude of the deceased Atul Singh,
Supervisor. In the circumstances, as referred above, the
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appellant-accused on the day of incident, at about 10:30
p.m., without premeditation, in heat of passion, suddenly
took the iron rod generally used for running the machinery
and inflicted blow on the head of the deceased. The PW.3
– Madhubalan Srinivasan and others immediately rushed
to the place of occurrence and taken the deceased to the
Hariya Hospital, Vapi for treatment. The deceased was
unconscious. He suffered Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in the
right temporal lobe with multiple fractures in the skull. He
was operated by the Doctor, however, on 17.06.2010, he
succumbed to the injuries. The eye witness, the colleague
of the deceased Madhubalan Srinivasan, lodged an FIR
against the accused for the offence of murder.
The Investigating Officer – PW.14, after registration
of offence, was entrusted to investigate the matter. He
drew the panchnama of place of occurrence and seized
the iron rod allegedly left at the place by the accused. He
recorded the statements of material witnesses and
arrested the accused. He obtained the medical case
papers as well as postmortem report and sent the
necessary samples for Chemical Analysis and finally, at
the end of investigation, he filed the chargesheet for the
offence of murder punishable under Section 302 of the
IPC. The Magistrate committed the case of the court of
sessions at Valsad and same came to be registered as
Sessions Case No.43 of 2010.
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The Sessions Judge, Valsad framed the charge
against the appellant-accused. He did not admit the
charge and claim to be tried.
3. In order to prove the case against the appellant,
prosecution has examined 14 witnesses and exhibited 21
documents to prove its case as per the following table:
Oral evidence
PW 1-Exh. 7 Dimple wd/o Atulkumar Surendrasing
PW 2-Exh. 8 Yogesh Rameshchandra Mathur, panch witness
PW 3-Exh. 11 Madhubalan Krishnraj Shrinivasan, complainant
PW 4-Exh. 14 Premabhai Naranbhai Halpati, panch witness
PW 5-Exh. 17 Dr. Mayur Devchandbhai Patel, medical officer
PW 6-Exh. 20 Harishbhai Vitthalbhai, panch witness
PW 7-Exh. 21 Dr. Suresh Buddhilal Sarode, medical officer
PW 8-Exh. 26 Tejas Nagarbhai Patel
PW 9-Exh. 27 Sanjaysing Rajendrasing, panch witness
PW 10-Exh. 29 Rakesh Champakbhai Bhandari
PW 11-Exh. 30 Dhiraj Premnath Malhotra
PW 12-Exh. 31 Zinabhai Premabhai, police station officer
PW 13-Exh. 34 Krushnaraj Jamnadas Sampat
PW 14-Exh. 37 Bhupendra Naginsing Chavda, investigation
officerDocumentary evidence
Exh.9 Map of place of crime
Exh.10 Arrest panchanama
Exh.12 Complaint
Exh.13 Inquest panchanama
Exh.15 Panchanama of seizure of clothes of deceased
Exh.18 Post mortem note
Exh.19 Police yadi for examination of corpse of deceased
Exh.22 Report of CT scan of deceased
Exh.23 Certificate of injuries to deceased issued by Hariya
Hospital
Exh.25 Medical case papers of admission of deceased to HariyaPage 4 of 9
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Hospital
Exh.28 Panchanama of seizure of iron batch
Exh.32,33 Copy of note entered in station diary
Exh. 38 FSL mobile van report of visiting location of crime
Exh. 39 Letter by IO to FSL for analysis of articles
Exh. 40 Forwarding note by IO to FSL
Exh. 41 Letter of authority sent by IO to FSL
Exh. 42 Receipt by FSL of receiving articles
Exh. 43 Letter by FSL to IO
Exh. 44 FSL report
Exh. 45 Serological report
4. After completion of oral as well as documentary
evidence, the statement of the appellant-accused under
Section 313 of the Cr.P.C. was recorded in which he has
stated that, he was innocent and had been falsely
implicated in the alleged crime. The accused took the
defense that the deceased died due to accident.
5. At the conclusion of trial, the Trial Judge convicted
the accused for the offence under Section 302 and
sentenced him to suffer life imprisonment.
6. Being dissatisfied with the judgment and order of
conviction and sentence, the accused has come up with
the present appeal.
7. Submission on behalf of appellant-accused
7.1. Mr. Hemant Raval, learned counsel appearing for and
on behalf of the appellant-accused vehemently submitted
that the trial court committed a serious error in holding
the appellant-accused guilty of the offence of murder. He
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would submits that, the judgment of conviction is unjust,
improper and is not sustainable in the eye of law. He
would further urge that, the appellant-accused did not
have any intention to commit murder of the deceased as
the offence took place because there was a dispute of
allocation of duty and the accused was compelled to work
as a helper which he was not supposed to do and
therefore, without any premeditation, in a heat of passion,
the accused took the iron rod allegedly lying nearby the
place of occurrence and inflicted a blow on the deceased.
In such circumstances, without pressing the conviction on
merits, he would urge that, the cause of death was
culpable homicide not amounting to murder punishable
under Section 304 of the IPC.
In such circumstances, Mr. Raval, learned counsel
prayed that there being merits in the appeal and the order
of conviction and sentence may be modified.
8. Mr. Jay Mehta, learned APP vehemently opposed the
appeal and contended that, no error, not to speak of any
error of law could be said to have been committed by the
court below in holding the accused-appellant guilty of the
offence. He would urge that, the injuries were sufficient in
ordinary course of nature to cause the death and bodily
injury found on the vital part of the body and there were 3
to 4 fractures internally found by the Doctor and
therefore, the manner in which the blow was inflicted by
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the accused, the inference would arise that, the injuries
were intended to cause death and therefore, the benefit of
exception (4) to Section 300 would not be available and
there is no ground exists to extend the said benefit. In
such circumstances, learned APP prays that there being no
merits in the appeal and same may be dismissed.
9. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and
considered their rival submissions made hereinabove and
also went through the record with utmost circumspection.
10. There is no dispute about the decision of the trial
court that death of the deceased was homicidal in nature.
11. When the conviction has not been challenged on
merits, there is no need to refer and examine the oral
evidence of the witnesses. The medical evidence, oral as
well as documentary evidence proves and establish that
the cause of death of the deceased was the head injuries
sustained by him. According to Doctor PW.5, who had
conducted the postmortem of the deceased and treating
Doctor PW.7 – Dr. Suresh Sarodhe, there was a
subarachnoid hemorrhage in the right temporal region and
defuse cerebral edema and multiple fractures of skull
noted by the doctors on the body of the deceased.
Deceased died after 14 days. The complainant PW.3,
being an eye witness, has stated that, the iron rod
inflicted repeatedly by the accused, however, at the same
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time, he has admitted that, the facts of repeated blow
given by the accused was not disclosed by him in the FIR.
The PW.3 and other witnesses who were present at the
place of occurrence including the senior officer of the
company PW.11, admitted the facts that, the accused was
directed to work as a helper in the company instead his
regular work for which he had refused to do the work and
his presence in the company was not noted by the
deceased for which the grievance was voiced by the
accused before the higher authority. Having considered
the peculiar facts of the present case, the issue arise as to
whether the offence was that of murder or culpable
homicide not amounting to murder punishable under
Section 304 Part-I -II of the IPC?
12. Admittedly, incident happened because of the abrupt
decision of the deceased while allocating the work to the
accused. The instrument which was used for the assault
was lying at the place of occurrence, meaning thereby, at
relevant time, he was not armed with the said instrument.
The blow was at the vital part but it cannot be said that,
there was a repeated blow as there was exaggeration on
this aspect, made by PW.3. Therefore, it can be safely
come to a conclusion that, without premeditation on a
short quarrel, a blow was inflicted which later on proved to
be fatal. Thus, it can be inferred that the accused at least
could be imputed with a knowledge that he was likely to
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cause an injury on the head which may cause death and
therefore, in our considered opinion, the case of the
appellant-accused would fall under exception 4 to Section
300 of the IPC.
13. In view of foregoing discussion and reasons thereof,
the conviction of the appellant under Section 302 of the
IPC as well as the sentence awarded to him is hereby set
aside and instead thereof, he is convicted for the offence
punishable under Section 304 Part-II of the IPC and
sentenced him to undergo 10 years imprisonment. The
appellant has undergone 12 years of his imprisonment.
Thus, he shall be set free henceforth, if his custody is not
required in any other case.
14. The criminal appeal is partly allowed to the extent
indicated hereinabove.
(ILESH J. VORA,J)
(HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK,J)
TAUSIF SAIYED
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