The State Of Uttar Pradesh Home Department Secretary vs. Satendra Etc.

NON-REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
2025 INSC 409
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 550-551/2015

1. The State of Uttar Pradesh filed the present appeals
challenging the judgment dated 29.02.2012 passed by the High Court
of Judicature at Allahabad in Criminal Appeal Nos. 5509/2007 and
4954/2007, accepting the appeals filed by the respondents, namely,
Satendra and Neetu, and acquitting them of the charges under
Sections 148, 450/149, 323/149, 307/149 and 302/149 of the Indian
1
Penal Code, 1860.
2. The trial court, by judgment dated 25.07.2007, had convicted
the respondents, namely, Satendra and Neetu, on the aforestated
charges, while acquitting as many as six accused, namely, Abdul
2
Rehman; Shamsad, son of Khursheed; Shamshad, son of Farzanda;
Fateh Mohammad alias Fotu/Photu; Jabir; and Tausif.
3. The acquittal of the aforesaid accused persons was not
challenged by the State and has become final.
Signature Not Verified
Digitally signed by
babita pandey
Date: 2025.03.27
19:05:27 IST
Reason:
1 For short, ‘IPC’.
2 Shamshad, son of Farzanda, died during the pendency of the trial.
Therefore, the case against him stood abated.
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4. We have heard the learned counsel for the State of Uttar
Pradesh and for the respondents, namely, Satendra and Neetu, at
some length.
5. In our opinion, the High Court erred in appreciating the
evidence of the three eye-witnesses, namely, Rajveer Singh (PW-1),
son of Lakshman Singh, Rajpal Singh (PW-2), son of Lakshman Singh
and Lakshman Singh (PW-3). Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh
(PW-2) are the brothers of the deceased, Dharampal, while Lakshman
Singh (PW-3) is their father.
th
6. The date and time of the occurrence is the night between 30
st
and 31 January, 2004, at about 12.00 midnight. The incident
occurred at the house where Lakshman Singh (PW-3) and his family,
including Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh (PW-2), were
residing.
7. The three eye-witnesses, namely, Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal
Singh (PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3) have, in seriatim, deposed
about the presence of the respondents, namely, Satendra and Neetu,
along with three or four other persons, who had broken into the
house. It is deposed that two persons came from the roof, and the
others entered through the main door, carrying firearms and arms.
They also testified about identifying the respondents, namely,
Satendra and Neetu, because of the light available from the torch
and the lantern. It is important here to state that the names and
the parentage of both the respondents, namely, Satendra and Neetu,
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were duly recorded and mentioned in the complaint and the First
3
Information Report No. 24 of 2004 dated 31.01.2004 registered soon
thereafter at 02.30 a.m. with Police Station – Budana,
Muzzafarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
8. Shish Kanwar Rana (PW-5), Constable, deposed about the
registration of the said FIR at about 02.30 a.m. on 31.01.2004 by
Krishan Pal Rathi, Constable, who could not be examined as he had
expired in 2005. Shish Kanwar Rana (PW-5) was posted at the
aforesaid police station and was present during the registration of
the FIR. He identified the signatures and handwriting of Krishan
Pal Rathi, Constable.

9. We will now deal with the so-called discrepancies which
weighed with the High Court to upset the findings recorded by the
trial court and disbelieve the eye-witness version of Rajveer Singh
(PW-1), Rajpal Singh (PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3).
10. The first ground and reason given by the High Court is that
there was a discrepancy as to whether the accused had muffled up
their faces when they entered the house. Reference was made to the
purportedly divergent testimonies of Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and
Rajpal Singh (PW-2), who had stated that the intruders did not have
their faces covered, whereas Lakshman Singh (PW-3) had deposed that
the intruders, including the respondents, Satendra and Neetu, had
muffled up their faces. Lakshman Singh (PW-3), however, deposed
that, during the scuffle, he saw their faces and was able to
3 For short, “FIR”.
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identify and recognize the respondents, Satendra and Neetu.
11. We find that the aforesaid alleged discrepancy is not there
at all. We considered the testimonies of Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and
Rajpal Singh (PW-2), who stated that, at about midnight, two
miscreants came down from the roof by climbing down the staircase
and opened the gate. Thereupon, three or four miscreants had come

inside. Lakshman Singh (PW-3), the father of the deceased,
Dharampal, had raised an alarm, upon which the miscreants had
started assaulting him. On hearing the noise, and after getting a
torch and a gas lantern from their rooms, the brothers, namely,
Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal Singh (PW-2), Dharampal (deceased),
Udaiveer (not examined), Jaipal (not examined) and Vijaypal (not
examined), ran towards their father, Lakshman Singh (PW-3), with
lathis and sticks. The miscreants fired gunshots from country-made
pistol(s) with an intent to murder them but missed. However, the
deceased, Dharampal, chased the miscreants while they were running
away, and the respondent, Satendra, who was a fellow villager,
fired a gunshot, which hit and killed Dharampal. They also named
respondent, Neetu, who belonged to the same village, as one of the
miscreants who had been identified by them. The death of Dharampal,
as a result of a gunshot injury, was duly proved by the postmortem
report (Exhibit – Ka. 3), which was conducted by Dr. Sudhir Kumar
(PW-4). It was proved that the bullet pierced and exited through
the upper side of the chest of the deceased, Dharampal, causing his
death.
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12. We have also examined the testimony of Lakshman Singh (PW-3)
and compared the version given by him with the versions of Rajveer
Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh (PW-2). While appreciating their
testimonies before the Court, one must keep in mind that they are
rustic villagers who were suddenly shaken up by the miscreants
entering their house at midnight. They confronted the miscreants,
and there was a scuffle between them and the miscreants. The
identification of the two accused, namely, Satendra and Neetu, is
specifically deposed to in their testimonies, and this factum is
corroborated by the FIR (Exhibit – Ka. 4), wherein their names were
duly recorded, shortly after the occurrence.
13. Another alleged discrepancy relied upon by the High Court to
acquit the respondents, Satendra and Neetu, in our opinion, is more
in the nature of a contradiction in the reasoning of the High
Court. The High Court observed that the eye-witnesses, Rajveer
Singh (PW-1), Rajpal Singh (PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-
3), have deposed one and the same thing without deviating much from
the stand taken in the FIR and, therefore, their version should not
be accepted.
14. We not only find the above reasoning contradictory, but on
reading the testimonies of Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal Singh
(PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3), we are of the opinion that they
have been forthright about the facts in the versions stated by
them. Although there are some minor discrepancies in their
versions, the overall consistency between their statements in the
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Court and their earlier statements implicating both the
respondents, namely, Satendra and Neetu, and the acts on their
part, has been clearly and lucidly brought out.
15. Thus, we would not treat the versions given by Rajveer Singh
(PW-1), Rajpal Singh (PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3) as improbable
or unnatural. On the other hand, their versions and the facts
stated by them are utmost believable and should be accepted, as
held by the trial court.
16. The third reason given by the High Court, in our opinion,
refers to a minor discrepancy as to how the grapple had taken
place. The High Court also accepted that there was grappling, as
was stated by the three eye-witnesses. As per the versions given by
Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh (PW-2), at the time of the
incident, on account of the light of the torch and the lantern,
they were able to identify both the respondents, Satendra and
Neetu, who belonged to the same village. We, therefore, reject the
reasoning of the High Court that because the respondents, Satendra
and Neetu, belonged to the same village, they would not have gone
to commit dacoity or would have hidden their faces so as to not be
identified.
17. The High Court also referred to the recovery of the pistol
(Exhibit-Ka. 13/1) from Satendra and the ballistic report (Exhibit-
Ka. 26). As per the ballistic report (Exhibit-Ka. 26), the two
empty cartridges recovered from the spot ( Exhibit-Ka. 12) c ould not
be matched with the fired cartridge from the country-made pistol
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(Exhibit-Ka. 13/1). This, in our opinion, would not, in any way,
dilute the eye-witness accounts of Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal
Singh (PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3). It would only show that the
police were not able to recover the cartridge/weapon of the
offence. It may be noted that, as per the version given by Rajveer
Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh (PW-2), three bullets were fired, but
only two empty cartridges were recovered from the spot. The
postmortem report (Exhibit-Ka. 3), as noticed above, stated that
the bullet had pierced and gone through the body of the deceased,
Dharampal.
18. During the course of the hearing, our attention was drawn to
some additional facts. First, the respondent, Neetu, was not even
charge-sheeted; secondly, the clothes worn by Rajveer Singh (PW-1)
and Rajpal Singh (PW-2) were not seized by the police. On the first
aspect, the eye-witnesses, Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal Singh
(PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3) had expressed their anguish and
anger at the manner in which the police had conducted the
investigation. They openly claimed that the ‘Darogaji’, who had
conducted the investigation, sided with and helped Neetu, who was
specifically disclosed/named with his parentage in the FIR
(Exhibit-Ka. 4). They had, in seriatim, denied having made any
statements on 16.02.2004 to the effect that they had misidentified
and wrongly mentioned the name of Neetu along with his parentage,
whereas the person who was present at the spot belonged to a
different village. On the other hand, they further deposed that
they had not implicated anyone else and had stated that the six
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other accused, who were acquitted by the trial Court, were falsely
implicated and were never present at the spot.
19. It is also a fact that Neetu was not charge-sheeted, but
subsequently, when the statement of Rajveer Singh (PW-1) was
recorded, an application under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal
4
Procedure, 1973, was moved, and Neetu was summoned and asked to
stand trial.
20. On the question of bloodstains on the clothes, we find that
the witnesses deposed that they, that is, the brothers, had lifted
the deceased, Dharampal, and had taken his body inside. They also
stated that their clothes did not have blood stains, as they lifted
the deceased together in a shoulder-leg position. The bullet
injury, as per the postmortem report (Exhibit-Ka. 3), was in the
chest area. The clothes worn by the deceased, Dharampal, as well a s
the controlled earth sample (Exhibit-Ka.11), taken during the
course of the investigation, tested positive for human blood.
However, the blood group could not be ascertained due to the
putrefaction of the blood.
21. The contention, which was also accepted by the High Court,
that the miscreants had weapons and, therefore, the two eye-
witnesses, namely, Rajveer Singh (PW-1) and Rajpal Singh (PW-2),
and the other brothers would not have dared to confront and grapple
with the miscreants, must be rejected. We are dealing with
villagers who were perturbed when they found intruders entering
4 For short, “the Code”.
8


their house to commit dacoity and attacking their father, Lakshman
Singh (PW-3). They had not come out empty-handed but with
lathis/dandas/sticks to challenge the intruders/miscreants. We,
therefore, do not think that the conduct of Rajveer Singh (PW-1),
Rajpal Singh (PW-2) and their brothers in challenging the intruders
was unnatural, so as to be discarded as unbelievable.
22. Another contention was that Rajveer Singh (PW-1), Rajpal Singh
(PW-2) and Lakshman Singh (PW-3) had not given the names of the
known intruders to the fellow villagers who had come to the spot
after the occurrence. We do not think that this aspect dents the
prosecution case, given the fact that the names of the respondents,
Satendra and Neetu, were categorically mentioned in the FIR, which
was recorded immediately after the occurrence. Interestingly, the
Investigating Officer, Jagdish Singh (PW-7), stated that he had
visited the spot at 05.00 a.m. during the same night. This
corroborates the fact that the FIR was recorded immediately after
the occurrence without delay.

23. In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that
charges under Sections 323, 450, 307 and 302 read with Section 34
of the IPC are made out against the respondents, Satendra and
Neetu. We would give the benefit of doubt insofar as the charge
under Sections 148 and 149 of the IPC is concerned. Accordingly,
the respondents, Satendra and Neetu, shall stand convicted under
Sections 323, 450, 307 and 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The
respondents, Satendra and Neetu, are sentenced as under:
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i.
For the charge under Section 302 of the IPC, they shall
₹
undergo life imprisonment and pay a fine of 10,000/- each.
ii.
For the charge under Section 307 of the IPC, they shall
undergo 5 years of rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of
₹ 5,000/- each.
iii.
For the charge under Section 450 of the IPC, they shall
undergo 5 years of rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of
₹
5,000/- each.
iv. For the charge under Section 323 of the IPC, they shall
undergo rigorous imprisonment for 1 year.
v. In case of non-payment of the aforestated fine amounts, the
respondents, Satendra and Neetu, shall undergo 6 months of
simple imprisonment.
All sentences will run concurrently. The benefit of Section
428 of the Code will be given to them.
24. The respondents, Satendra and Neetu, shall surrender within a
period of four weeks from today to undergo their sentences, as
noted above. In case the respondents, Satendra and Neetu, fail to
surrender within a period of four weeks from today, the
police/trial Court will take steps to detain/arrest them for
undergoing their sentences.
25. The impugned judgment(s) is modified to the aforesaid extent
and the appeals are partly allowed.
26. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.
................CJI.
(SANJIV KHANNA)
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..................J.
(SANJAY KUMAR)
NEW DELHI;
MARCH 20, 2025.
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