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Kamleshwar Paswan v. Union Territory Of Chandigarh .
Factual and Procedural Background
On 15 January, Gurnam Singh (PW 3) discovered the appellant, Kamleshwar Paswan, beating his three children inside their home in Village Kishangarh, Union Territory of Chandigarh. Yashoda lay grievously injured while Sunil Paswan (aged three) and Suraj Paswan (aged one) were unconscious. PW 3 and Sunaina (DW 2), the appellant’s wife, transported the children to local medical facilities, eventually reaching the Post-Graduate Institute (PGI) Chandigarh.
Upon PW 3’s statement to SI Sunehara Singh (PW 14), an FIR was registered under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). After the two boys succumbed to their injuries, Section 302 IPC was added. A challan was filed under Sections 302 and 308 IPC, and the appellant stood trial.
The trial court, relying on eyewitness testimony (PW 1 Vinod, PW 2 Anil Kumar, and PW 3 Gurnam Singh) corroborated by medical evidence from Dr. Dilbar Singh (PW 4), convicted the appellant under Sections 302 and 307 IPC. It sentenced him to death for the murders, awarding no separate sentence for the Section 307 offence. The High Court confirmed the death sentence and dismissed the appellant’s appeal, prompting the present proceedings.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the conviction of the appellant under Sections 302 and 307 IPC was sustainable on the evidence recorded by the courts below.
- Whether the circumstances of the case met the “rarest of rare” standard necessary to sustain a death sentence, or whether the sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- The offence did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category because the appellant was only 28 years old at the time of the incident.
- The incident occurred while the appellant was in an inebriated state and immediately after a quarrel with his wife, suggesting diminished culpability.
State's (Prosecution) Position
- The eyewitness accounts of PWs 1–3 were consistent and credible, and corroborated by medical testimony.
- The nature of the injuries demonstrated a deliberate, brutal attack inconsistent with the defence version of accidental injury.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Court affirmed the factual findings of the trial court, holding that the eyewitness testimony of PWs 1, 2, and 3 was reliable and fully supported by Dr. Dilbar Singh’s medical evidence. It rejected Sunaina’s defence testimony as incompatible with the medical opinion, which indicated deliberate blows from a wooden stick rather than accidental injuries.
Turning to sentence, the Court acknowledged the brutality of the offence but weighed mitigating factors: the appellant’s youth (28 years), his intoxicated state, and the socioeconomic pressures of being a migrant rickshaw-puller in Chandigarh. These circumstances, the Court concluded, removed the case from the “rarest of rare” category warranting capital punishment.
Holding and Implications
Appeal partly allowed: the convictions under Sections 302 and 307 IPC are sustained, but the death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
Implications: The appellant will serve life imprisonment instead of facing execution. The judgment applies existing sentencing principles without creating new precedent; its impact is confined to the parties involved.
Order
1. 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 appellant-accused 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.
2. Gurnam Singh, PW 3 accompanied by Sunaina (DW 2), the wife of the appellant-accused, took the children to Sharma Clinic in 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.
3. 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 IPC at Police Station Manimajra in the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The two boys thereafter died and a case under Section 302 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 IPC and the appellant was committed to stand trial.
4. The trial court relying on the eyewitnesses' 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 accidentally and that the appellant had no role to play. The trial court relying on the evidence of the three prosecution witnesses mentioned above 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 Sections 302 and 307 IPC and sentenced him to death for the murder of his two sons. No separate sentence was awarded for the offence under Section 307 IPC.
5. 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.
6. 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 eyewitness 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 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.
7. Ms 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 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.
8. We cannot also ignore the fact that the appellant 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 at a stone's throw from its elite sectors that house the Governors of Punjab and Haryana, the Golf Club, and some of the city's 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.
9. 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 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.
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