Hari Pal Singh v. State of UP

Hari Pal Singh & Othrs
V.
State of UP
IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
CORAM:
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MUKTA GUPTA

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANISH DAYAL
Legal Issues
1) Whether the accused are rightly convicted by the trial court?
2) Whether the A-4, Vinod Kumar Pandey is rightly acquitted?
3) Whether the accused officers are guilty and the Section 302 IPC?
Ratio of the Court
Alleged robbery by the deceased and subsequent arrest

In the alleged robbery, it is notable that neither the phone was recovered nor produced during
trial nor said Manoj Gupta was traced or apprehended. None of the 5 personnels were in
uniform and were in plain clothes and none of them disclosed to the family of the deceased that
they were police officials. Furthermore, they came in a private car. The court upheld the Ld. Trial
Court’s observation regarding the guidelines of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in DK Basu v. State
of West Bengal
Sonu was not formally arrested and the arrest memo does not record their presence.The
circumstances, therefore, in which Sonu was arrested and taken by the police is an
ambiguously suspicious and mired in serious doubt. In addition to that, the arrest of Sonu was
without informing the IO PW-12 and without any diary entry in the entry.
Journey from the place of arrest to the Police Station Noida

There was no evidence that a distance of even 80 km along with a stopover for a meal can by
any stretch of imagination take 8 hours, even on a rainy night and raids of various accomplices
of Sonu. Therefore the delay in lodging Sonu in the Police Station is not acceptable and cannot
serve to support the case of the defence.
Arrival at Police Station and lodging the deceased in the lockup
There is serious inconsistency and doubt relating to fact whether Sonu was taken to Police
Chownki Nithari, before being take to PS Sector-20. The circumstance of Kale Singh’s retraction
of his statement being a police officer, creates a serious doubt as to series of events which
occurred that night. Further there was no record or evidence of fire at PS Sector 39 lockup.
Even if there was fire incident then the nearest police station to deceased,s house was PS
Khurja Dehat. Therefore, the chain of circumstantial evidence is against the accused.
Custody of the deceased and movement of police personnel

The circumstances relating to lodging of Sonu in PS Sector 20 at 3:25 a.m. are highly
suspected. It is extremely or that all relevant police personnel who fought to be available at the
PS at the time refused to acknowledge their presence in that time period. Moreover the
testimony of police officers contradicts each other's statements. It is, therefore, completely clear
that conduct of all these police officials refusing to acknowledge their presence after the lodging
of Sonu or around that time, leads to a conclusion that the situation in PS at the time was not
fine
Medical Examination of the deceased

GD no. 8 clarifies that the deceased was not examined medically before being lodged at night
and arrested without a warrant, because of his hale and hearty condition which could not come
to rescue of defence. Reference to Rule153 and 157 of the UP Police regulations cannot relieve
the accused police personnel of their mountain duty to ensure that these procedures ought to
have been complied with.
Discovery of the body of the deceased and suicide theory

Discovering the body of the deceased in the morning, as but the statement of PW-29, also has
serious inconsistencies. It is difficult to believe and digest and observe that between 5:45 a.m.
and 5:55 a.m. all these events to place including waking up of PW-29 at his residence, going to
the police station, discovering the purported hanged body of the deceased, bringing it down,
cutting its knots, checking whether he was alive, registering a case and then leaving for the
hospital.
Information about death to the complainant

The manner in which information was given to the family member of the deceased by constable
from PS Khurja and not from PS Sector-20 where the incident took place to reach the police
station other than the place of incident forms yet another strong linkage in the chain of
circumstantial evidence against the accused. Even if it is assumed that the deceased died
around 5:45 a.m., there was no reason to delay approximately 3 hours in informing the family
members about his death.
Nature of injuries on the dead body.

There is no explanation for the Black/Blue and Burn marks on the deceased body. Further,
PW-5 contusion could be possible by battering and heavy beatings, with hard and blunt object. It
is hard to accept that received committed suicide and then sustained such injury during the
process of being saved by train police personnels.
Cause of death and MLC and the post mortem report

There is a serious discrepancy between injuries recorded in the inquest report and the post
mortem report. Moreover the doctor PW-5 also confirmed that injuries were only possible by
beating by hard and blunt objects. Such injuries are more consistent with bettering and beating
with collision with a wall.
FSL Report
The shirt used for hanging himself was examined by FSL Officer but was never sent to the
postmortem doctors for examination, though it was shown to have been seized. Further the left
half sleeve of the shirt that was cut and the blade with which he had allegedly open the knots
were never recovered. The FSL report also mentioned that there were blood stains on the
deceased’s baniyan and underwear.
GD Entries
There were no original or photocopies of some GD entries. Further there were no evidences to
prove the GD Entries which led to serious manipulations and also that there was no one to
corroborate the actual departure of the accused police team from the police station after the
purported lodging of Sonu at 3:25 a.m. It was also observed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in
State Of MP V. Shyam Sunder Trivedi(1995) 4 SCC 262; State of U.P. v. Ram Sagar
Yadav(1985) 1 SCC 552 and ShakIla Abdul Gafar Khan v. Raghunath Dhoble, (2003) 7 SCC
749 That if there is evidence to Show that the accused has fabricated evidence to absolve
himself from the offence, that circumstance will also point towards his guilt.
DECISION HELD
In view of the above analysis, it is the considered opinion of the Court that:
1) The Ld. Trial Court has rightly convicted the said accused for the offences and the appeals by
the accused are, therefore, dismissed and the conviction and sentence awarded by the learned
trial court are upheld;
2) Considering that there was no evidence relating to presence of A-4, Vinod Kumar Pandey at
the site of abduction and at PS Sector-20, the Ld. Trial Court is correct in having acquitted him
for lack of evidence. The appeal of the complainant is, therefore, dismissed.
3) Considering that there is no evidence on record to prove that the accused police officers
caused injuries to Sonu with an intention that in all likelihood death will ensure, thereby causing
the murder of the deceased, it would be difficult to reach a conclusion that the accused police
officers would be guilty of offence punishable under Section 302 IPC. The said sequence of
events and evidence on record suggest that the deceased was subjected to custodial torture
with the knowledge that & connected appeals, it was likely to cause death of the deceased but
without any intention to cause the death. Therefore, the act of causing bodily injury, as is likely
to cause death, would make the accused guilty of offence punishable under Section 304 IPC
Part I and liable for a sentence for RI 10 years. Thus, the appeals filed by the complainant for
converting the convictions for offence punishable under Section 304 IPC to Section 302 IPC
cannot be sustained and therefore Crl.A. 1023/2019 and Crl.A.1024/2019 are dismissed.

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Hari Pal Singh & Othrs

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MUKTA GUPTA

1) Whether the accused are rightly convicted by the trial court?

2) Whether the A-4, Vinod Kumar Pandey is rightly acquitted?

Ratio of the Court

Alleged robbery by the deceased and subsequent arrest

Journey from the place of arrest to the Police Station Noida

Custody of the deceased and movement of police personnel

Medical Examination of the deceased

Discovery of the body of the deceased and suicide theory

Information about death to the complainant

Nature of injuries on the dead body.

Cause of death and MLC and the post mortem report

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