Summary
Two young men were found unconscious in the accused family's house at Jagatpur, Kathua in 1990 and later died. The appellants, sons of the first accused, were convicted of murder under the Ranbir Penal Code on a dying declaration and the evidence of the deceased's brother and another witness. The Supreme Court found that the prosecution had suppressed the genesis of the incident. The three accounts of why the deceased came to the house were contradictory, and the investigating officer left unexplained the head injury suffered by the first accused, who said intruders had attacked him. The possibility that the accused, provoked by that assault, acted under grave and sudden provocation could not be excluded. The conviction was altered to Section 304 Part I, with the sentence limited to the roughly ten years already served.
Issues
- Whether the appellants' conviction for murder under Section 302 of the Ranbir Penal Code could stand where the prosecution's accounts of the genesis of the incident were contradictory and the injuries to the first accused were left unexplained.
Provisions considered
- Sections 300 (Exception 1), 302 and 304 Part I, Jammu and Kashmir State Ranbir Penal CodeAs the possibility of the accused acting under grave and sudden provocation after the assault on the first accused could not be ruled out, they were given the benefit of Exception 1 and the conviction altered to Section 304 Part I. (¶¶ 20, 21)
Held
- The occurrence was in the accused's own house and the dying declaration, PW-1 and PW-2 gave mutually inconsistent versions of why and how the deceased came there, PW-2's presence not even being mentioned by PW-1; the prosecution did not come with clean hands and suppressed the genesis of the incident. (¶¶ 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18)
- The investigating officer admittedly did not investigate the injury sustained by the first accused, whose defence was that intruders struck him with a lathi; the prosecution's failure to explain it, together with the contradictions, entitles the appellants to the benefit of doubt under Exception 1 to Section 300. (¶¶ 17, 18, 20)
- The conviction under Section 302 is converted to one under Part I of Section 304, and since the appellants have served about ten years, the sentence already undergone suffices. (¶ 21)
Result
Criminal Appeal No. 1863 of 2010 against the Jammu and Kashmir High Court judgment dated 05.06.2009 in Crl. A. No. 9 of 1991 partly allowed; the appellants' conviction altered to Section 304 Part I of the Ranbir Penal Code with sentence reduced to the period undergone, and their bail bonds discharged.