Smt.Mangrita Minz W/o Shri Joseph Minz, aged about 36 years, Occupation- Labourer, R/o Village v. State of Chhattisgarh, through P.S.- Kunkuri, District- Jashpur
Case Details
1 Digitally signed by AMIT PATEL 2025:CGHC:44940 AFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRA No. 527 of 2008 Smt.Mangrita Minz W/o Shri Joseph Minz, aged about 36 years, Occupation- Labourer, R/o Village- Bodokachhar, Tahsil- Kunkuri, District- Jashpur (C.G.) … Appellant versus State of Chhattisgarh, through P.S.- Kunkuri, District- Jashpur (C.G.) ----Respondent _____________________________________________________________ For appellant : Mr. Ishwar Jaiswal, Advocate appears through Legal Aid. For State : Ms. Nandkumari Kashyap, Panel Lawyer. ____________________________________________________________ Hon'ble
Legal Reasoning
Smt. Justice Rajani Dubey Judgement on Board 03.09.2025 1. Looking to the pendency of this case, which is pending since 2008 and today when the matter is called, no one appears on behalf of the appellant, therefore, in these circumstances, this Court is directed to Shri Ishwar Jaiswal, learned Panel Lawyer to assist the Court and contest the matter on behalf of the appellant. 2. The Secretary, High Court Legal Aid Committee is directed to appoint Shri Ishwar Jaiswal, Advocate to contest the matter on behalf of the appellant and authorization letter in this regard be also issued. 3. This appeal is preferred under Section 374 (2) of the Code of Criminal 2 Procedure, 1973 against the judgment dated 24.05.2008 passed by learned Sessions Judge, Jashpur, passed in S.T. No. 64/2007, whereby the said Court convicted the appellant and sentenced her as under:- Conviction Sentence U/S 304-II of IPC R.I for 10 years 4. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant is the second wife of Joseph Minz (PW-6), whereas the deceased was his first wife. On 17.07.2006 an altercation took place between the appellant and the deceased and in that process the appellant kicked the deceased Shilbani over her stomach and chest, as a result of which, she died instantaneously. Morgue intimation was lodged by Joseph Minz (PW-6) on 18.07.2006. Inquest on the body of the deceased was prepared and the dead body was sent for postmortem examination. Statements of the witnesses were recorded, query was done from the doctor. Thereafter, the FIR was lodged by police of Police Station- Kunkuri. During the investigation, three sealed packets of articles were seized from the Constable Dinesh Pandey and sent to FSL, Raipur for its chemical examination. After completion of due and necessary investigation, she was charge-sheeted before the Court of concerned Jurisdictional Magistrate, who, in turn, committed the case for trial. On the basis of the material contained in the charge-sheet, learned trial Court framed charges against the appellant for alleged commission of offence under Section 302 of IPC. The appellant having abjured guilt was subjected to trial. 5. In order to establish the charges against the accused person, the prosecution has examined as many as 07 witnesses. The statement under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. of the appellant has been recorded, in 3 which she denied the incriminating charges leveled against her and pleaded her innocence that she has been falsely implicated in this case. However, no witness has been examined by her in her defence. 6. The learned trial Court after hearing the counsel for the respective parties and considered the material available on record thereby convicted and sentenced the accused/appellant as mentioned in inaugural para of this judgment. Hence, this present appeal. 7. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the impugned judgment and order of conviction is against the facts, law and circumstances of the case, learned trial Court ought to have considered that the injuries have been sustained by leg only and no ingredients of Section 304-II of IPC is attracted in this case. Learned trial Court ought to have considered this fact that as per Dr. Sangeeta Tirkey (PW-1), the cause of death is due to rupture of her spleen and the same can be caused due to falling on hard and blunt surface or object. Learned trial Court has failed to consider the statement of the Dr. Sangeeta Tirkey (PW-1) that the spleen was enlarged due to some ailment and it might be possible that, due to this reason the spleen has ruptured, however she has opined nowhere that the rupture of the spleen was caused due to kicks sustained by the deceased and the husband of the deceased namely Joseph Minz (P.W.-4) has not supported the prosecution story and has been declared hostile in this case, though, he has stated that, the deceased was ill prior to 3-4 days of the incident. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that even if the entire evidence is taken on its face value, offence under Section 304 Part-II of IPC is not made out against the accused/appellant and at best the act of the accused/appellant falls within the ambit of Section 325 of IPC for voluntarily causing greivous hurt to the deceased, but the learned trial 4 Court wrongly convicted the appellant under Section 304-Part II of IPC. Learned counsel further submits that the incident took place in the year 2006 and thereby more than 18 years have rolled by since then. The accused/appellant has remained in jail for more than 01 year and no useful purpose would be served in again sending her to jail, however she did not misuse the liberty while being on bail. Therefore, in the interest of justice, it would be appropriate if the sentence imposed upon her may be reduced to the period already undergone by her after altering the conviction of the appellant under Section 325 of IPC. Thus, the present appeal deserves to be allowed in full or in part. 8. Ex adverso, learned State counsel, supporting the impugned judgment submits that prosecution has been able to prove the offence beyond reasonable doubt and the trial Court after minutely appreciating the oral and documentary evidence and looking to the statement of the doctor, has rightly convicted the appellant for the aforesaid offence and it is not the case of alteration of offence from under Section 304-II of IPC to Section 325 of the IPC where the conviction of the appellant can be modified for lesser offence, therefore, the instant appeal deserves to be dismissed. 9. It is evident from record of learned trial Court that it framed charge for offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC against the appellant and after appreciation of oral and documentary evidence, learned trial Court convicted the appellant as mentioned in inaugural para of this judgment. 10. Anjulus Minz (PW-6) has stated that on the date of incident i.e., 17.07.2006 at around 6:00 pm, he heard some noise of quarrel and the deceased Shilbani was pleading someone to spare her life ( मत मारो), then he entered the house of deceased, which was already opened and saw that the appellant had been assaulting the deceased over her 5 stomach with kicks and later on he came to know that the deceased died. 11. Joseph Minz (PW-4) and Avinash Toppo (PW-5) have not supported the prosecution case and the prosecution declared them hostile and cross- examined them, though, they denied all the suggestions of prosecution. 12. It is evident from statement of Anjulus Minz (PW-6) that some alteration took place between deceased and the appellant, where the appellant assaulted the deceased over her stomach with kicks. 13. Dr. Sangeeta Tirki (PW-1), who conducted postmortem examination of the deceased and opined that cause of death of the deceased was hemorrhage due to enlarged and rupture spleen and the nature of death was uncertain, so she advised for the police investigation and viscera was sent to FSL for its chemical examination. She gave her report vide Ex. P/1. 14. It is evident from statement of doctor PW-1 that she has not opined that nature of death is homicidal, rather she opined that cause of death due to enlarged and rupture spleen. She has also admitted this fact that she found only one injury on the body of the deceased and further admitted the suggestion of defence that the spleen was enlarged due to some ailment. In query report (Ex. P/2), she opined that the cause of death was due to rupture of her spleen and the same could be caused due to fall on the hard and blunt surface or object. But, the learned trial Court did not appreciate this fact and the prosecution has failed to prove homicidal death beyond reasonable doubt and doctor PW-1 has also stated that nature of death was uncertain which also corroborated from statement of eye witness i.e., Anjulus Minz (PW-6) who has stated that the appellant did not use any weapon while assaulting the deceased and the appellant was assaulting the deceased by landing kicks over 6 her stomach. 15. It has been held by Hon’ble Apex Court in the matter of Lal Mandi vs. State of W.B.1 in para 8, which read as under:- “ 8. The only consistent evidence that emerges from the testimony of PW 2, PW 5 and PW 8 is that the appellant gave a kick to the deceased at the house of Man Singh. According to the post-mortem report, the deceased had four incised wounds besides a lacerated wound and fracture of ribs. The fracture of ribs of the deceased is attributed to the appellant and his co-accused . The appellant can, thus, be fastened with the liability of an offence under Sections 325/34 of IPC only. The evidence on the record does not justify the conviction of the appellant for offences under Sections 302/34 IPC and Section 201 IPC.” 16. In the case in hand, as per prosecution story itself, the appellant assaulted the deceased Shilbani by legs and doctor has only found one injury on the body of the deceased and cause of death was uncertain. Thus, looking to the statement of eye-witness (PW-6) and postmortem report (Ex.P/1) given by Dr. Sangeeta Tirki (PW-1) and query report (Ex. P/2), it is quite evident that the deceased died due to rupture of her enlarged spleen and it was not proved by prosecution beyond reasonable doubt regarding the death of the deceased as to whether her spleen got ruptured due to the assaults of appellant or it caused due to fall on a hard and blunt surface or object. 17. Therefore, neither intention nor knowledge can be attributed to the accused for causing murder of culpable homicide not amounting to 1 (1995) 3 SCC 603 7 murder of deceased Shilbani. At the most, the offence under Section 325 of IPC is proved as the accused voluntarily causing grievous hurt to the deceased. 18. Thus, considering the nature and extent of injury and the statements of the prosecution witnesses, the act of the accused/appellant does not fall within the ambit of Section 304 Part-II of IPC but makes him liable to be convicted under Section 325 of IPC. 19. In the aforesaid view of the matter, the conviction under Section 304 Part-II of IPC recorded against the accused/appellant cannot be sustained and therefore it deserves to be quashed and set aside by holding that the accused/appellant has committed the offence under Section 325 of IPC only for voluntarily causing grievous hurt to deceased Shilbani. Thus, the conviction of the accused/appellant under Section 304 Part-II of IPC is altered to Section 325 of IPC. 20. As regards quantum of sentence, keeping in view the facts that incident took place in the year 2006, this appeal is pending since 2008, the appellant was on bail during trial and even during pendency of this appeal nothing has been brought to the notice of this Court that she ever misused the liberty granted to her; appellant is now aged more than 50 years and has remained in jail for more than 01 year. In these circumstances, this Court is of the opinion that no useful purpose would be served in again sending her to jail at this stage and the ends of justice would be met if she is sentenced to the period already undergone by her for offence under Section 325 of IPC. 21.
Decision
In the result, the criminal appeal is partly allowed. Conviction of the appellant under Section 304-II of IPC is hereby set aside and she is instead convicted under Section 325 of IPC and sentenced to the 8 period already undergone by her. The impugned judgment stands modified to the above extent. 22. The appellant is reported to be on bail. However, keeping in view the provisions of Section 481 of BNSS, 2023 the appellant is also directed to furnish a personal bond for a sum of Rs. 25,000/- with one surety in the like amount before the Court concerned which shall be effective for a period of six months alongwith an undertaking that in the event of filing of special leave petition against the instant judgment or for grant of leave, the aforesaid appellant on receipt of notice thereon shall appear before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. 23. The trial Court record along with a copy of this judgment be sent back immediately to the trial Court concerned for compliance and necessary action. Sd/- (Rajani Dubey) JUDGE AMIT PATEL