3 min readChandigarhApr 8, 2025 09:28 PM IST
First published on: Apr 8, 2025 at 09:28 PM IST
Bringing closure to a nearly quarter-century-old murder case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday upheld the convictions of four individuals involved in the brutal killing of a man and the grievous injury of another in Gurgaon (now Gurugram) in December 2001.
The judgment was delivered by a Division Bench comprising Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi, who dismissed the appeal filed by the convicts against the 2004 trial court verdict. The court took note of the long pendency of the matter, which reached final hearing 24 years after the original FIR was registered on December 25, 2001.
Case Background
According to the prosecution, the incident stemmed from a monetary dispute. Sanjay, the complainant, had loaned Rs. 20,000 to one of the accused, Chanda Ram alias Kallu, about 8-9 months prior to the incident. After several failed attempts to recover the money, tensions escalated, culminating in a violent assault on the evening of December 24, 2001.
The assailants — Narender alias Nirender, Chanda Ram alias Kallu, Suraj Bhan, Sukki alias Shakuntala, and others — arrived armed with various weapons, including a knife, scissors, chhuri (blade), danda (stick), and saria (iron rod). In the attack, Rajbir alias Bittu was fatally stabbed multiple times, while Satish Kumar, Sanjay’s brother, sustained serious injuries. Another accused, Lajja, and Het Ram, initially summoned under Section 319 CrPC, were later acquitted by the trial court.
In April 2004, the Fast Track Court in Gurgaon convicted the accused under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, sentencing:
• Narender alias Nirender, Chanda Ram alias Kallu, and Suraj Bhan to life imprisonment under Section 302 IPC, along with additional sentences under Sections 307/34 IPC and 25 of the Arms Act.
• Sukki alias Shakuntala was convicted under Section 307/34 IPC and sentenced to three years’ RI.
All sentences were ordered to run concurrently. Notably, the convicts had obtained suspension of sentence from the High Court between 2004 and 2007 during the pendency of the appeal.
High Court Observations
The bench rejected the appellants’ claims of discrepancies in witness statements and contradictions in medical evidence. “Minor contradictions in the medical evidence cannot discredit the clear and consistent eye-witness accounts of two witnesses, who are real brothers of the deceased,” Justice Bedi observed in the judgment.
The court also emphasized the credibility of injured eyewitnesses, stating, “It is a settled position in law that testimony of injured witnesses is of great evidentiary value and cannot be brushed aside lightly.”
While acknowledging that blood was not found on the recovered weapons and that medical opinion on the scissor injury was inconclusive, the court held that “such discrepancies are not fatal to the prosecution’s case when the overall narrative is coherent and supported by multiple witnesses.”
On the role of Sukki alias Shakuntala, who was said to have only held Satish during the attack, the court stated that her presence and facilitative role made her culpable under the common intention doctrine.
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