High Court Overturns Trial Court Verdict: Accused Acquitted After 18 Years in Land Dispute Death Case
Bilaspur,C.G
In a significant judgment, the High Court has acquitted an accused who was sentenced to 10 years in jail 18 years ago in a land dispute case involving the death of an injured person. The court found lack of sufficient evidence in the trial court’s earlier decision.
In an important decision, the High Court has acquitted the accused in the case of death of a person injured in a clash during a land dispute after 10 days. The trial court had sentenced the accused to 10 years imprisonment for culpable homicide in this case. Let us tell you that the trial court had sentenced the accused to 10 years imprisonment in 2007.
Sendla, a resident of village Kodu of Rajpur police station of Surguja, had a fight with Dhannu, a person from the same village, on 22 March 2006 over land division. Some people from the village tried to intervene. During this, the accused Sedla abused Dhannu and attacked him on the head with a wooden stick. He fell unconscious due to a serious head injury. He was admitted to the hospital. After this, the family brought him home, where he died on 31 March 2006. After the post-mortem, the police registered a case under section 302 in the case and presented the challan in the trial court.
The trial court sentenced the accused to 10 years imprisonment under Section 304 Part 2 on 18 September 2007. The accused filed an appeal in the High Court against the sentence. The appeal said that the witnesses did not support the prosecution's case and turned hostile. There are also significant omissions and contradictions in the statements of the witnesses. The doctor who conducted the post-mortem testified that I had referred the deceased for better treatment. But the family members of the deceased discharged him early and took him home. Due to this, the injured could not get proper treatment and he died thereafter.
It was also argued in the appeal that the incident happened due to a sudden quarrel. The appellant had no intention to kill Dhannu. Dhannu came to the appellant's house in an inebriated state and started beating his mother. She intervened and stopped him and in the scuffle, she suffered head injuries and later died. The High Court agreed with the arguments, and acquitted the accused.