New Delhi: A children's quarrel over mangoes took an ugly turn 40 years ago: a fight broke out between the adults of the families and the father of one of the children succumbed to injury by a lathi on the skull.
A murder case was registered against five accused, two passed away during the pendency of the matter, and they were convicted for murder and awarded life imprisonment. The convicts insisted that it was not a pre-planned murder. Last month, the Supreme Court converted the conviction of three men from murder to less stringent culpable homicide not amounting to murder, considering the nature of the injuries inflicted on the skull on the victim by a lathi.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said: "We convert the findings of Section 302 of IPC to that of Section 304 Part-I of IPC, and thereby convert the sentence of life imprisonment of all the appellants before us to that of seven years rigorous imprisonment”.
The apex court also imposed a fine of Rs.25,000 each to be paid to the victim's family. Advocates Jagjit Singh Chhabra and Saksham Maheshwari represented appellants, Man Bahadur Singh, Bharat Singh and Bhanu Pratap Singh, before the apex court. Advocate Namit Saxena represented the Uttar Pradesh government.
The bench said that it has come from the deposition of all the eyewitnesses, this is not a case of pre-planned murder. The bench further said the incident started with a fight between children for "mangoes" which unfortunately flared up when the adults of the families also got involved which ultimately led to the deceased - Vishwanath Singh, (the father of one of the children), being killed.
The bench, in an order passed on July 24, which was uploaded recently, said: "Considering the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, the nature of the injuries (as according to the postmortem report itself, only injury Nos.1 and 2 on the skull causing the death of the deceased - Vishwanath Singh) and also considering the nature of the weapon used which is a lathi, we are inclined to accept the argument that it is indeed a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and it is not murder".
On April 19, 1984, at about 2:00 pm, a fight took place between children belonging to two families which resulted in the family of the accused attacking one Vishwanath Singh (deceased), who was the father of one of the children involved in the fight. The five accused named in the FIR in Gonda district were armed with 'Lathis'. However, two of them died during the pendency of the appeal before the Allahabad High Court.
The top court noted that out of the five antemortem injuries recorded in the postmortem report, two injuries seem to have been fatal and the victim's skull was fractured which ultimately led to his death.
The bench said there were eyewitnesses to the incident, particularly three eye-witnesses out of which one was the injured eye witness and they were put to a lengthy cross-examination in the trial but nothing has come which could cast any doubt on their testimony. “Under these circumstances, the fact that the death is homicidal is not in question and the fact that the deceased died due to the injuries caused to him by the lathi blows inflicted by the appellants, has also been clearly established by the evidence placed by the prosecution," said the apex court.
