Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, Oct 13: Principal Sessions Judge Udhampur, A K Koul today awarded two years imprisonment to Naresh Kumar alias Babbu and Munwar Hussain, who were facing trial for the last eight years for assaulting an employee of Forest Department.
According to the police case, on March 12, 2004, the accused persons assaulted an employee of the Forest Department at Kulwanta Resin Depot when the later was discharging his official duty. On the basis of this report, a case was registered under Section 332/382 RPC and after completion of investigation challan was presented in the court of law.
After hearing Public prosecutor Navneet Gupta for the State whereas Advocate P K Jandial for the accused, Principal Sessions Judge observed, “the court is of the view that the prosecution has established the nexus of the accused with the commission of the crime satisfactorily. The accused have voluntarily caused grievous hurt to the informant to deter him from discharging his official duty as a public servant”.
“So their act squarely falls within the ambit of Section 333 of RPC. They are accordingly convicted for the commission of the offence. Once they are held guilty of graver offence under Section 333 of RPC the accusation under Section 332 RPC becomes redundant”, the Court said, adding “the accused have committed the crime with a dual purpose. They wanted a free passage through the barrier where injured public servant was posted, in breach of law and they wanted the injured to be a particeps criminis with them”.
“The injured on the other hand defied their design and he wanted to discharge his duty faithfully and conscientiously and he had to pay the price for that”, the Court further said, adding “the accused are in the age group of 30 to 43. They have faced the trial for more than 8 years and they have not used any weapon in commission of the crime. Though they have inflicted grievous injury on a public servant, who was discharging his official duty to detter him from doing so but still the crime committed by the accused cannot be categorized as grave”.
With these observations, the Court awarded imprisonment for two years and fine of Rs 2000 each to the convicts.
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