PETITIONER: KRISHNEGOWDA AND OTHERS Vs. RESPONDENT: STATE OF KARNATAKA DATE OF JUDGMENT: 25/11/1999 BENCH: M.B.Shah, G.B.Pattanaik JUDGMENT:
Shah, J.
These appeals are filed by convicted accused wherein
it is alleged that accused belong to Congress party and
deceased No.1- Kengegowda belonged to Janata Party and was
the Pradhan of Karimuddenahalli. Deceased No.2-Govindegowda
was the younger brother of Kengegowda and he was President
of the Milk Producers Co-operative Society and both were
leaders of Janata Party. During the elections to the Mandal
Panchayat in the year 1988, Kengegowda was elected to the
Panchayat. Because of the said elections, disputes
including criminal cases were pending in the Court. It is
the prosecution story that on 02.5.1989 at about 5.30 p.m.
deceased Kengegowda alongwith witnesses was sitting near
Srikantachars shop and was chitchatting. At a distance of
8-10 ft. other witnesses were also sitting and
chitchatting. That is, in all deceased Kengegowda, PW1 to
PW6, CW5 and CW8 were present at the scene of offence. At
that time, A1 to A3 followed by another 20 to 25 accused
came running to the direction from the house of A12 holding
choppers, clubs and stones etc. They all came in a group.
As the aforesaid witnesses were about to get up, A1 to A3
assaulted deceased- Kengegowda by chopper, A4 and A5
assaulted him with clubs and other accused assaulted PW1 to
PW6. They are all named and identified by the injured
witnesses. It is also the say of the prosecution that after
assaulting the deceased-Kengegowda and the witnesses,
accused left and ran away from the place of offence towards
the house of A12. Thereafter, they got information from
PW9, son of the deceased Govindegowda, that his father was
assaulted by the accused and that accused have chopped his
legs and hands and he was lying near the High School ground.
This information was sent at Police Station, which is 18
kms. away from the village. It is the say of PW 29, Police
Sub-Inspector that a telephonic message was received at
about 6.30 p.m. that some miscreants have assaulted
Kengegowda and Govindegowda. On receipt of the said
message, PW29 alongwith police constable reached the village
at 7.00 p.m. and found deceased Nos.1 & 2 lying on
different spots and they were alive at that time. He also
found PWs 1 to 6 and 9, who were injured. After recording
the statement of PW1, he sent deceased and PW3 to the
hospital for treatment. Thereafter, PW32 Inspector of
Police came to the spot and recorded the statement of PWs 1,
2, 4, 5, 6 and 9 and after recording their statements they
were sent to hospital for treatment. After recording the
FIR, copy was sent to the Jurisdictional Magistrate, which
reached him at 1.00 a.m. on 3.5.1999. Investigating
Officer received the message on 3.5.1999 that the deceased
have died. After completing the investigation, charge sheet
was submitted and after committal SC No.87/89 was tried by
the Principal Sessions Judge, Mysore. The Learned Principal
Sessions Judge by his judgment and order dated 16th
December, 1993 convicted the appellants accused No.1 to 22
for the offences punishable under Sections 148, 324, 326,
341 and 302 read with Section 149 of IPC for murder of
Kengegowda. He acquitted accused Nos. 23 to 29. For
second incident of murder, the learned Principal Sessions
Judge arrived at the conclusion that there is a very strong
suspicion regarding participation of the accused in
commission of murder of Govindegowda. But after
appreciating the evidence, the Court held that the
prosecution has failed to prove the second incident which
occurred near High School on Gaddige road.
Against the said judgment and order, the convicted
accused preferred Criminal Appeal No.185/1994 and the State
preferred Criminal Appeal No.494/1994 against the acquittal
of accused Nos.23 to 29. The High Court by its judgment and
order dated 24th July, 1996 dismissed both the appeals.
That judgment and order is challenged in these appeals by
the convicted accused.
The learned Principal Sessions Judge has appreciated
the entire evidence in great detail. The High Court has
also considered the evidence led by the prosecution. The
courts relied upon the evidence of injured witnesses PW1 to
PW6 and the evidence of PW10 to PW12 who are eye- witnesses
to convict the accused. Both the courts analysed the
evidence and arrived at the conclusion that all injured
witnesses have specifically assigned roles to accused Nos.1
to 5 in assaulting deceased Kengegowda. Injured witnesses
also specifically deposed before the court as to who
assaulted them and other injured witnesses. The court also
considered the fact that evidence on record discloses that
accused came in a group with deadly weapons, such as
choppers, clubs etc., with a common object of assaulting the
deceased, Kengegowda. In view of these concurrent findings
of courts below that there was an unlawful assembly
consisting of convicted accused with a common object to
murder Kengegowda, who was of rival faction, it is not
necessary for us to re-evaluate the evidence in its
entirety. The evidence of the injured prosecution witnesses
is corroborated by the medical evidence. Further, within a
short span of one and a half-hour, FIR disclosing the names
of the accused was lodged.
The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the
appellants after referring to the evidence on record was not
in a position to challenge the findings that:-
(1) There were rival groups and elections disputes
including criminal cases were pending; and
(2) The accused came together and assaulted the
deceased Kengegowda and injured witnesses.
However, he has produced, for our perusal, a chart
showing overt acts attributed to the accused by witnesses
and submitted that those accused, who were not armed with
any weapon or who were alleged of having stones may be given
the benefit of doubt. He has submitted that in a case where
large number of assailants and victims are involved it would
be prudent to follow the rule of appreciation of evidence
stated by this Court in Masalti v. State of U.P., {(1964) 8
SCR 133} (para 16) which is as under:-
Mr. Sawhney also urged that the test applied by the
High Court in convicting the appellants is mechanical. He
argues that under the Indian Evidence Act, trustworthy
evidence given by a single witness would be enough to
convict an accused person, whereas evidence given by half a
dozen witnesses which is not trustworthy would not be enough
to sustain the conviction. That, no doubt is true; but
where a criminal court has to deal with evidence pertaining
to the commission of an offence involving a large number of
offenders and a large number of victims, it is usual to
adopt the test that the conviction could be sustained only
if it is supported by two or three or more witnesses who
give a consistent account of the incident. In a sense, the
test may be described as mechanical; but it is difficult to
see how it can be treated as irrational or unreasonable
He further submitted that the aforesaid rule of
appreciation of evidence is followed by this Court in Binay
Kumar Singh etc. v. State of Bihar {(1997) 1 SCC 283} and
Baddi Venkata Narasayya & Ors. v. The State of Andhra
Pradesh {JT 1997 (9) SC 293}.
In our view, this aspect is also considered by the
learned Sessions Judge in paragraph 51 wherein the Court has
held that the presence and assault by A1 to A5 is spoken to
by injured eye-witnesses, presence of accused A6 to A8, A10
and A11 is spoken to by PW5, presence of A6 is also spoken
to by PW6, presence of A9, A13 and A17 is spoken to by PW2,
presence of A15, A16 and A18 is spoken to by PW4, presence
of A1, A20 and A22 is spoken to by PW3 and presence of A12
who abetted the offence is spoken to by PW14. PW1 to PW6
have stated the presence of A14, A19 and other acquitted
accused, which establishes that the evidence of these
witnesses discloses the presence of A1 to A22 in the
incident. The learned Sessions Judge has also considered
the evidence of each witness assigning specific overt acts
to the accused. Considering the chart produced by the
learned counsel for the appellants for our perusal and the
findings given by the learned Sessions Judge, it cannot be
said that the court has not followed the rule of
appreciation of evidence in a case where large number of
assailants and victims are involved, as laid down by this
Court in Masaltis case (Supra). The chart given by the
learned counsel clearly indicates that two or more persons
have specifically spoken the presence of the accused.
Witnesses have given consistent account of the incident and
the role played by the individual accused. In this
particular case, the injured eyewitnesses have consistently,
since beginning, assigned specific role to a particular
accused and this aspect has been properly considered by the
learned Sessions Judge. In this view of matter, in our
view, there is no question of giving benefit of doubt to
accused No.14-Tammegowda and accused No.22- Somegowda, as
contended by the learned counsel for the appellants. As per
the chart, the presence and overt acts of accused
No.14-Tammegowda is deposed by PW1 and PW6 and that of
accused No.22-Somegowda is established by PW1 and PW3 and
that at the relevant time he was having club.
In view of the aforesaid finding given by the learned
Principal Sessions Judge and confirmed by the High Court, we
do not think that there is any substance in these appeals.
These appeals are dismissed accordingly.