Kamleshwar Paswan vs State Of U.T.Chandigarh

CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 739-740 OF 2009

KAMLESHWAR PASWAN .. APPELLANT(S)

vs.

STATE OF U.T. CHANDIGARH .. RESPONDENT(S)

O R D E R

This is indeed a very unfortunate case.

On 15th January, Gurnam Singh (PW.3), a resident of

House No.1 in village Kishangarh in the Union Territory of

Chandigarh, had gone to meet a servant of one Milkha Singh

for some personal work. As he reached the house of Pritam

Singh, he found a woman standing outside shouting "killed

them-killed them". PW.3, Gurnam Singh, also heard the

voice of a screaming child from inside the house of Pritam

Singh. PW.3 forced open the door and saw the

accused/appellant Kamleshwar Paswan beating his three

children with a wooden stick and Yashoda, the daughter of

the appellant, lying on one side with serious injuries. He

also noticed that the appellant's sons Sunil Paswan and

Suraj Paswan (aged one and three years respectively) had

also suffered injuries and were unconscious. Gurnam Singh

PW accompanied by Sunaina (DW.2), the wife of the

accused/appellant, took the children to Sharma Clinic in

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village Kishangarh. The Doctor told them that as the

children were in a serious condition they should be taken

to the PGI, Chandigarh. In the meantime a vehicle from the

Police Control Room reached Sharma Clinic and PW.3 and DW.2

along with the three injured children were taken to the

General Hospital, Sector 16, Chandigarh which referred them

further to the PGI, for treatment. In the PGI PW.3 made a

statement to PW.14 SI Sunehara Singh narrating the above

facts on which a First Information Report was registered

under Section 307 of the IPC at Police Station, Manimajra

in the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The two boys

thereafter died and case under Section 302 of the IPC was

added on. PW.14 also visited the place of occurrence and

made the necessary investigations. A challan was

ultimately filed under Sections 302 and 308 of the IPC and

the appellant was committed to stand trial. The Trial

Court relying on the eye witnesses account of PW.1 Vinod,

PW.2-Anil Kumar, the immediate neighbours of the appellant

and his family and PW.3 Gurnam Singh held that the case

against the appellant stood proved beyond doubt. Sunaina,

the wife of the appellant, however, appeared as a defence

witness and gave a statement that the three children had

received injuries accidently and that the appellant had no

role to play. The Trial Court relying on evidence of the

three prosecution witnesses mentioned above

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as supported by the medical evidence given by PW.4-Dr.

Dlbar Singh, who had conducted the post-mortem examination

on the dead bodies and had also examined the injuries on

Yashoda, convicted the appellant under Section 302 and 307

of the IPC and sentenced him to death for the murder of his

two sons. No separate sentence was awarded for the offence

under Section 307 of the IPC. The matter was thereafter

referred to the High Court for the confirmation of the

death sentence and the appellant also filed an appeal. The

High Court has, by the impugned judgment, confirmed the

death sentence and dismissed the appeal. The matter is

before us in these circumstances.

We have heard the learned counsel for the parties

very carefully. We see that the case of the prosecution is

clearly spelt out from the evidence. No fault can be found

with the eye-witness account of PWs. 1, 2 and 3 and their

statements are clearly supported by the evidence of the

Doctor PW.4. The defence story projected by DW.2, the wife

of the appellant, is on the face is unacceptable as the

Doctor opined that the injuries suffered by the three

victims could not have been caused in the manner suggested

by her. The very nature of the injuries clearly reveal

that they were the result of a direct attack in a brutal

and violent fashion with a lathi.

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Mrs. S.Usha Reddy, the Legal Aid Counsel for the

appellant, has however pointed out that the present case

did not fall under the category of the rarest of the rare

cases in the light of the fact that the appellant was a

young man of 28 years on the date of the incident and that

the offence had been committed by him (as per the

prosecution story) while he was in an inebriated condition

and after a quarrel with his wife. We cannot also ignore

the fact that he was a rickshaw puller and a migrant in

Chandigarh with the attendant psychological and economic

pressures that so often overtake and overwhelm such

persons. Village Kishangarh is a part of the Union

Territory of Chandigarh and a stone throw from its elite

Sectors that house the Governors of Punjab and Haryana, the

Golf Club, and some of the cities most important and

opulent citizens. It goes without saying that most such

neighbourhoods are often the most unfriendly and

indifferent to each others needs. Little wonder his

frustrations apparently came to the fore leading to the

horrendous incident. Nevertheless keeping in view the

overall picture and in the light of what has been mentioned

above, we feel that the ends of justice would be met if the

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appeal is allowed to the extent that the death sentence is

substituted by a term of life imprisonment.

We accordingly dismiss the appeals but commute the

sentence from death to life.

.................J. (HARJIT SINGH BEDI)

....................J. (CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD)

New

Delhi, January 11, 2011.