REPORTABLE

                  IN THE SUPREME COURT OF  INDIA             CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION   

             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.