KAMLESHWAR PASWANversusSTATE OF U.T. CHANDIGARH

    648       SUPREME COURT REPORTS                 [2011] 1 S.C.R.


A         S. Usha Reddy for the Appellant.

          Kamini Jaiswal, Advocate., for the Respondent.

          The following order of the Court was delivered

B                                 ORDER

          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
C 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.
D 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
E 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 village Kishangarh. The Doctor told them that
  as the children were in a serious condition they should be taken
F 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
G 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
H visited the place of occurrence and made the necessary
              KAMLESHWAR PASWAN v. STATE OF U.T.                        649
                        CHANDIGARH
         302 and 308 of the IPC and the appellant was committed to              A
         stand trial. The Trial Court relying on the eye witnesses account
         of PW.1 ·Vined, 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             B       at
         defencewitness 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 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
                                                                                D
         the IPC. The matter was thereafter referred to the High Court
y        for the confirmation of the death sentence and the appellant
         also filed an appeal. Tbe High Court has, by the impugned
         judgment, confirmed the death sentence and dismissed the
         appeal. The matter is before us in these circumstances.
                                                                                 E
               We have heard the learned counsel for the parties very
         carefully. We see that the case of the prosecution is clearly
r         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              F
         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   G
    -k   in a brutal and violent fashion with a lathi.

              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
                                                                                H
       -                                               .
    650      SUPREME COURT REPORTS.                  [2011) 1 S.C.R

A   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
B   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
c   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 wond.er
    his frustrations apparently came to the fore leading to the
    horrendous incident. Nevertheless keeping in view the overall
    picture and iii the light of what has been mentioned above, we
0
    feel that the ends of justice would be met if the appeal is allo\Yed
    to the extent that the death sentence is substituted by a term
    of life imprisonment.

        We accordingly dismiss the appeals but commute the
E   sentence from death to life.

    D.G.                                         Appeals dismissed.