Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
U.U. Lalit and Dinesh Maheshwari JUDGMENT
U.U. Lalit, J.
1. These appeals, at the instance of four original Accused namely Santosh Kumar, Dauwalal @ Ganesh Devangan, Manohar Verma and Puneetram Verma (Original Accused Nos. 6, 12, 13 and 16 respectively) seek to challenge the common judgment and order dated 15.06.2015 passed by the High Court1 dismissing Criminal Appeal Nos. 410 and 698 of 2000 as against the Appellants.
2. First Information Report (Ext. P-60) was lodged with Police Station Bhatapara (Rural), District Raipur pursuant to information received at the Police Station around 12:05 a.m. on 24.02.1997 from Informant Netram (later examined as PW-2). According to the information, the cousin of the Informant named Parasram Yadav, Deputy Sarpanch, Village Jarod, Bhatapara was assaulted fatally on 23.02.1997 at about 9.00 p.m. The relevant information had named certain persons to be responsible for the crime from the assembly of 25-30 persons who had gathered outside the house of the deceased. The information was:
Bhuneshwar Verma, Kamta Prasad Yadav, Mohan Verma, Kaushal verma, Gayaram Verma, Santosh Verma, Bihari Lal Verma, Shanker Lal Verma, Bharat Lal Verma, Virendra alias Tatku Verma, Daulal alias Ganesh Dewagan, Puneet Ram Vermaetc 25-30 people of his village came at the house of my brother Parasram Yadav, Deputy Sarpanch, Village-Panchayat, Jarod, due to enmity and with intention to kill him and being unanimous and being armed with Laathi, Danda, Khotlaetc started giving filthy abuse and by entering into the house of Parasram assaulted him and they dragged Parasram from his house and took him out in the courtyard and beat him with Laathi, Danda and Bhuneshwar Verma hit stone of about 15-20 kg weight on the head of Parasram and caused his death, due to which his brain got scattered out of skull.
3. During the course of investigation, names of 17 persons surfaced as suspects. Those 17 persons including the Appellants were tried for the offences punishable Under Sections 147, 148, 323, 342 and 450 Indian Penal Code as well as Under Section 302 read with 149 Indian Penal Code in Sessions Case No. 359 of 1997.
4. PW-1 Dr. A.D. Purena who had conducted post-mortem on the dead body of the deceased deposed that there were external injuries all over the body. The head was crushed, lacerated with compound multiple fractures on the skull bone, the brain material was absent and the skull bones were fractured in various sizes, multiple in number.
5. The eye witness account was as under:
I. PW- 2 - Netram, cousin of the deceased in his examination-in-chief deposed: -
I heard sound of Laathi (stick) at the door of my brother Parasram, then I came out and saw that Dayaram, Roshan, Onkar, Vinod, Tatku, Dauwa, Manohar, Mohan, Bhuwan and Punit were there. My brother Parasram is Deputy Sarpanch of Village Jarod. Due to which the Accused persons had enmity/quarrel since then. When I s........