Afr High Court
Case Details
1 2025:CGHC:22996-DB AFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRREF No. 1 of 2025 In Reference Of State Of Chhattisgarh Through- Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. --- Petitioner versus 1 - Santram Manjhwar S/o Dheersay Manjhwar Aged About 45 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. 2 - Anil Kumar Sarthi S/o Bharat Lal Sarthi Aged About 20 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. 3 - Pardeshi Das S/o Budhwar Das Aged About 35 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. 4 - Anand Das S/o Horidas Panika Aged About 26 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. 5 - Abdul Jabbar Urf Vikki S/o Mo. Ikbaal Memon Aged About 21 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station- Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. --- Respondents For Petitioner/State : Mr. Shashank Thakur, Deputy Advocate General For Respondent(s) : Ms. Sharmila Singhai, Senior Advocate Mr. Dheeraj Wankhede and Mr. Chetan Singh Chauhan, Advocates. 2 CRA No. 357 of 2025 Abdul Jabbar Alias Vikki S/o Mohd. Iqbal Memon Aged About 24 Years R/o Satrenga, Police Station Lemru, District Korba, Chhattisgarh ---Appellant Versus State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Police Station Lemru, District Korba Chhattisgarh For Appellant : Mr. Dheeraj Kumar Wankhede, Advocate For Respondent(s) : Mr. Shashank Thakur, Deputy Advocate General -- Respondent CRA No. 574 of 2025 1 - Santram Manjhwar S/o Dhirsai Manjhwar Aged About 45 Years R/o Satrenga, P.S. Lemru, District Korba (C.G.) 2 - Anil Kumar Sarthi S/o Bharat Lal Sarthi Aged About 20 Years R/o Satrenga, P.S. Lemru, District Korba (C.G.) 3 - Umashankar S/o Fekuram Yadav Aged About 22 Years R/o Satrenga, P.S. Lemru, District Korba (C.G.) 4 - Pardeshi Das S/o Budhwar Das Aged About 35 Years R/o Satrenga, P.S. Lemru, District Korba (C.G.) 5 - Anand Das S/o Horidas Panika Aged About 26 Years R/o Satrenga, P.S. Lemru, District Korba (C.G.) ---Appellant(s) Versus State of Chhattisgarh Through Police Station Lemru, Korba (C.G.) --- Respondent For Appellant(s) : Ms. Sharmila Singhai, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Chetan Singh Chauhan, Advocate. For Respondent(s) : Mr. Shashank Thakur, Deputy Advocate General Hon’ble Mr. Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice H on’ble Mr. Bibhu Datta Guru, Judge 3 Judgment on Board Per Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice 11/06/2025 1. Criminal Appeal No. 357/2025 and 574/2025 have been preferred by the respective appellants challenging the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 15.01.2025 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, F.T.S.C. (POCSO) Korba, District Korba, in Special Case (POCSO) No. 28/2021 awarding the following sentences to the appellants, which were to run concurrently: Sl.No Conviction under Sentence Fine Section Default Sentence Appellants-Santram Manjhwar, Anil Kumar Sarthi, Pardeshi Das, Anand Das and Abdul Jabbar @ Vikki 302/149 of the Indian Pena Code (for short, the IPC) (three counts) Death sentence - - 120B of the IPC Life imprisonment Rs. 3000/- 148 of the IPC 3 years RI Rs. 1000/- Death Sentence Death Sentence - - 376(DA)/149 IPC and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (for short, POCSO Act) 376(A)/149 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act of 3(2)(v) the Scheduled Caste and Tribe Scheduled (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (for the short, Atrocities Act) Life imprisonment Rs. 5000/- 6 months RI more. 3 months Rigorous imprisonment (for short, RI) more. 1 month RI more - - 1 2 3 4 5 6 4 7 3(1)(w) Atrocities Act of the 5 years R.I Rs. 5000/- Sl.No Conviction under Sentence Fine Section Appellant-Umashankar Yadav 302/149 of the IPC (three counts) Life imprisonment 120B of the IPC Life imprisonment Rs. 2000/- Rs. 3000/- 148 of the IPC 3 years RI Rs. 1000/- Rs. 3000/- 6 months R.I more. Default Sentence 3 months RI more. 3 months RI more. 1 month RI more 3 months RI more Life imprisonment which shall mean imprisonment for remainder of natural life Life imprisonment which shall mean imprisonment for remainder of natural life Life imprisonment 376(DA)/149 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act 376(A)/149 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act of 3(2)(v) the Scheduled Caste and Tribe Scheduled (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 the short, (for Atrocities Act) Rs. 3000/- 3 months RI more Rs. 5000/- 6 months RI more. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 3(1)(w) Atrocities Act of the 5 years R.I Rs. 3000/- 3 months R.I more. 2. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, in exercise of power conferred under Rule 273(b) of the Rules and Orders (Criminal) and Section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, the Cr.P.C.), after passing the sentence of death in respect of appellant-Santram Manjhwar, Abdul Jabbar @ Vikki, Anil Sarthi, anand Das and Pardeshi Das, submitted the
Legal Reasoning
proceedings to this Court for confirmation and this is how this death reference is before us for consideration alongwith the appeals preferred by the appellants/convicts being Cr.A. No. 357/2025 and 574/2025. 5 3. The admitted facts are that the victim/deceased ‘B’ who was a minor aged about 16 years, was the daughter of deceased ‘A’ and deceased ‘C’ was a minor child aged about 4 years and grand-daughter of deceased ‘A’. 4. The prosecution story, in brief is that deceased persons ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ along with their entire family used to live at the house of appellant-Santram Manjhwar and graze his cattle. In lieu of doing the said work, an agreement was made for Rs.8,000 per year and 10 kg rice per month, but Santram Manjhwar did not pay the dues for the entire year and had given only Rs. 600 for grazing the cattle and only 10 kg of rice was given per month. When asked for the remaining money, Santram Manjhwar used to evade the question. On 29.01.2021, the complainant/wife of deceased ‘A’ had gone to appellant Santram to settle the accounts for grazing the cattle and said that they will go back to their own home, then appellant-Santram said okay and gave Rs.600 cash, some pulses, rice and clothes and then they came back saying that they were going to their home. On the date of incident i.e. 29.01.2021, the deceased persons were at the bus stand of village Satrenga to go to their village when appellant - Satram Manjhwar conspired with his accomplice and other accused persons and reached the bus stand and told the deceased and their other heirs that we will drop them on a motorcycle and stopped them from boarding the bus and took them away in their motorcycles. He took them along till Korai village, after that he sent the deceased A’s wife/complainant ahead on a motorcycle but stopped deceased ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. The appellants/accused stopped on the way and drank alcohol and made the deceased drink alcohol and the accused persons executed the common objective under the pre-planned conspiracy and took the victim/deceased ‘B’ to the incident site and raped her. When deceased ‘A’ opposed this, he was beaten with sticks and stones and done to death. The victim/deceased ‘B’ was also assaulted by stones and left her 6 thinking that she was dead. The deceased ‘C’ was also killed by slamming her on a stone. 5. When the deceased persons did not reach their home, their whereabouts were searched by the complainant-wife (PW-2) of deceased ‘A’ alongwith his son. She also went to the house of accused Santram for enquiry but on not getting any information, she went to the police station and informed the situation. On 02.02.2021, on the information of the complainant/son (PW-1) of the deceased ‘A’, a missing person case was registered as per Ex.P-59 in respect of the deceased persons and investigation was done. On the said date, when the police team went to the house of appellant-Satram Majhwar, all the accused were found present. On interrogation by the police, Satram Manjhwar and Abdul Jabbar told that they had raped the victim/deceased ‘B’ and all the accused together had caused hurt and strangulated the deceased ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ and had thrown them in the forest. On going to the place mentioned by the accused persons along with the police team, deceased ‘A’ and ‘B’ were found lying dead, whereas the victim/deceased ‘B’ was alive but in an unconscious state. On giving the information to this effect, on 02.02.2021 at the Lemru Police Station by the complainant/son (PW-1) of the deceased ‘A’, an unnumbered merg intimation (Ex.P-1) was registered under Section 174 Cr.P.C. Thereafter, Dehati Nalishi was registered under Section 154 Cr.P.C. at 6 p.m. vide Ex.P-2 and the numbered FIR (Ex.P-64) was registered on the same night at 10:30 p.m. at Police Station, Lemru against the appellants. Numbered merg was also recorded on 02.02.2021 at 10 p.m. in respect of deceased ‘A’ and ‘C’ vide Ex.P/61 and P/62. On the identification of the accused, the bodies of the deceased ‘A’ and ‘C’ were recovered on 02.02.2021 at 13.00 p.m. through recovery panchanama Ex.P-33 and Ex.P-34 in presence of witnesses. Inquest with respect to deceased ‘A’ and ‘C’ were prepared vide Ex.P-29 7 and P-30. At that time, the victim/deceased ‘B’ who was alive, as sent to District Hospital Korba for treatment alongwith the application of Ex.P-49, but on reaching the hospital, the victim/deceased ‘B’ was found to be dead. Upon the information sent by Ward Boy Ravindra Kumar Rathore of District Hospital Korba, vide Ex.P-48, an unnumbered merg was registered vide Ex.P/69 in respect of victim/deceased ‘B’ and after preparing the inquest (Ex.P/31), the dead bodies of the deceased ‘A’ and ‘C’ was sent for postmortem on 02.02.2021 and the dead body of the victim/deceased ‘C’ was sent for postmortem on 03.02.2021 and their reports were obtained vide Ex.P-50, P-51 and P-52. After postmortem examination, the clothes of the deceased, under wear of the victim/deceased ‘B’, vaginal slides, pubic hair were seized vide Ex. P-71 to P-73. 6. Blood stained stone, gamchha, blood stained and plain soil, liquor stained plastic and steel glasses, two plastic bottles found near the dead body of the deceased ‘A’ at the place of incident were seized vide seizure memo Ex.P. 35. Blood stained stone, blood stained and plain mud found near the dead body of the deceased ‘C’ at the place of incident were seized through seizure form Ex.P. 36. Blood stained stone, blood stained and plain soil found near the body of deceased ‘B’ at the place of incident were seized through Ex.P. 37. On 03.02.2021 the accused were taken into custody and interrogated and memorandum statements Ex.P-13 to Ex.P-18 were recorded and as per the statement given by the appellants/accused, it was revealed that the accused Santram and Abdul Jabbar @ Vikki had forcefully raped the victim/deceased ‘B’ one after another and it was also revealed that the accused persons killed deceased ‘A’ by hitting him with a stick and stone, killed deceased victim ‘B’ and deceased ‘C’ by hitting them on their head with stones and strangulating them and hid their bodies in a pit. Accused Abdul Jabbar took the bamboo stick with him, accused Santram 8 took the bag of the deceased with him, threw the two steel glasses, disposable glass and liquor bottle used for drinking liquor in the forest itself and took the motorcycle used in the incident home and hid the clothes worn by the accused at the time of the incident by taking them home and hid them. 7. On the basis of the aforesaid memorandum of the accused persons, on 03.02.2021, a blue cream colored jeans full pant having blood like stains near the left thigh and near the leg, a bamboo stick on which blood was visible on the torn side and blue underwear worn on the date of incident were seized from accused Abdul Jabbar @ Vikki from beside his house through seizure memo Ex.P-19. A blue colored shirt having a stain near the right shoulder was seized from accused Pardeshi Das on his presenting from inside his house vide seizure memo Ex.P-20. On presenting by the accused Anand Das from inside his house, a light blue colour shirt with a stain on its right front side, a motor cycle and RC book Ex.P.21 were seized through a seizure memo. On the production by the accused Anil Kumar Sarathi, the jeans worn at the time of the incident which had blood near the zip and a black coloured T-shirt which had blood near the left pocket and the photocopy of the RC book of the motor cycle used in the incident were seized vide Ex.P-22. On production by the accused Umashankar Yadav, an old blue colour jeans which had blood like stain near the zip and the photocopy of the motor cycle and its registration certificate were seized vide seizure form Ex.P-23. On the production by the accused Santram, the bag of the deceased which contained clothes of daily use of deceased ‘A’ and his family members, cash amount of Rs. 580 and Aadhar Card of deceased ‘A’ and victim/deceased ‘B’, purple coloured shirt worn by accused Santram at the time of the incident which had blood like stain near the right hand wrist, the motor cycle and RC book, used in the incident were seized as per 9 Ex.P- 24. Blood samples of the accused persons were obtained as vide Ex.P-92. The accused were arrested on 03.02.2021 vide arrest memo Ex.P-38 to P-43 and the information with regard to their arrest was given to their family members vide Ex.P-80 to P-85. The MLC of the accused persons was conducted vide Ex.P-74 to P-49. 8. During the investigation, on 06.02.2021, documents relating to the victim/deceased ‘B’ was seized from the concerned school. On 06.02.2021 itself, the children's weight record register of the Anganwadi Centre in relation to the deceased ‘C’ was presented by the Anganwadi worker and the seizure was made vide Ex.P-06. During the investigation of the merg, the map of the incident site was prepared vide Ex.P-03 and Ex.P-04 dated 02.02.2021. During the investigation of the crime, the Patwari got the map of the incident site prepared vide Ex.P-25. On a notice dated 02.02.2021 being given by the police with regard to production of the caste certificate with relation to the caste of the deceased, the caste certificate of the deceased ‘A’, ‘C’ and their son/complainant was seized vide Ex. P-8, P-9 and P-10. On 09.02.2021, query report was obtained with respect to the articles seized from the accused persons and the place of incident, and further, the seized articles were sent to the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory and its report was obtained vide Ex. P-98. The finger print report of the accused was also obtained vide Ex.P-99. 9. After completion of the investigation, when the Police found that offence is made out against the appellants/convicts, charge sheet was filed before the learned learned trial Court. The learned trial Judge, framed charges against the appellants/convicts on 28.11.2024 for the offences punishable under Sections 120-B, 302/149 (three counts), 376-DA/149 and 376(A)/149 IPC and Section 6 of POCSO Act, Section 148, Section 3(2)(v) of the Atrocities Act and Section 3(1)(w) of the Atrocities Act . The appellants/convicts denied the charges and prayed for trial. 10 10. In order to bring home the offence, the prosecution examined as many as 23 witnesses namely son of deceased ‘A’ (PW-1), wife of deceased ‘A’ (PW-2), Ganesh Singh Paikra (PW-3), Santosh Kumar Armo (PW-4), Tempuram (PW-5), Krishna Kumari (PW-6), Sukwar Sai (PW-7), Jagatram (PW-8), Jairam Das (PW-9), Jaisheela Paikra (PW-10), Rajendra Kumar Yadav (PW-11), Dr. Sumit Gupta (PW-12), Vinod Tiwari (PW-13), Dr. K.B.Sonkar (PW-14), Dr. Madhu Anand Banjare (PW-15), Ajuram Khushram (PW-16), Tankeshwar Yadav (PW-17), Kuldeep Singh Katlam (PW-18), Rajendra Kumar Khuntey (PW-19), Dr. Ravikant Singh Rathore (PW-20), Yogesh Sahu (PW-21), Sanjay Kumar Ratre (PW-22) and Dr. Diksha Roy (PW-23) and exhibited as many as 99 exhibits and four documents vide Ex.C/1 to C/4. 11. The statement of the appellants/convicts under section 313 CrPC were recorded in which they have expressed their ignorance to the most of the questions and some of them were denied as well. They submitted that they were innocent and have been falsely implicated in this case. 12. The learned trial Judge, after considering the evidence on record, convicted the appellant/accused as detailed in the opening paragraph of this judgment. Hence, the present appeals by the appellants/convicts.
Legal Reasoning
13. Ms. Singhai, learned counsel appearing for the appellants-Santram Manjhwar, Anil Kumar Sarthi, Umashankar, Pardeshi Das, Anand Das, and Mr. Dheeraj Kumar Wankhede, learned counsel appearing for the appellant- Abdul Jabbar submit that the action taken by the police is not proved by the statements of the prosecution witnesses. The evidence of the memorandum and the witness of the seizure does not support the said action. The dead body was not recovered from the place of incident on the basis of the 11 information given by the accused persons, rather the police had already come to know about the dead body being found at the place of incident. There is a lot of contradiction in the statements of the mother and brother of the victim/deceased and the remaining witnesses have turned hostile. There is no eye witness to the incident. The chain of circumstantial evidence is not complete. Evidence of the accused being seen with the deceased for the last time just before the bodies were recovered has not been proved. There is no proof of the blood of the deceased being found on the clothes of the accused and the blood of the accused being found on the clothes of the deceased has not been proved. The investigation proceedings are vitiated. No crime has been committed by the appellants and they have been roped in this case on the basis of suspicion. The prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. 14. Ms. Singhai next submits that the son (PW-1) of the deceased ‘A’, in his deposition before the Court has stated that only appellant-Abdul Jabbar and Santram had committed rape upon the victim/deceased ‘B’, whereas according to Ganesh Singh Paikra (PW-3), the appellant-Santram Manjhwar, Abdul Jabbar @ Vikki , Anand Das and Pardeshi Das and as such there is contradiction. Though the blood has been found on the articles seized by the police, however, blood group could not be conclusively established. Furthermore, as per the report Ex. P-99, finger prints of only Anil Kumar Sarthi was found on the steel glass. The DNA report (Ex.C-4) report is doubtful as Umashankar’s DNA was found over the undergarments of the victim/deceased ‘B’ who was incapable of performing sexual intercourse. 15. In support of the above submission, Ms. Singhai places reliance on the decisions of the Supreme Court in Manoj & Another v . State of Madhya