Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Titan Dey vs State Of Tripura on 25 November, 2014
Bench: T.S. Thakur, Adarsh Kumar Goel, R. Banumathi
1
ITEM NO.5 COURT NO.2 SECTION II
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s). 5024/2012
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 12/08/2011
in CRLA No. 57/2005 passed by the High Court Of Gauhati At
Agarthala)
TITAN DEY Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF TRIPURA Respondent(s)
(with appln. (s) for bail and permission to file additional
documents and office report)
(For final disposal)
Date : 25/11/2014 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE T.S. THAKUR
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ADARSH KUMAR GOEL
HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE R. BANUMATHI
For Petitioner(s) Mr.Parthiv K.Goswami, Adv.
Mr. Yashvardhan Singh, Adv.
Ms.Diksha Rai, Adv.
Mr. Vikash Singh,Adv.
For Respondent(s) Mr. Gopal Singh,Adv.
Mr.Rituraj Biswas, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Leave granted.
The appeal is dismissed in terms of the signed order. Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Shashi Sareen Date: 2014.12.02
(Shashi Sareen) (Veena Khera)
11:03:04 ALMT
Reason: Court Master Court Master
(Signed reportable order is placed on the file) 2 REPORTABLE IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 2510 OF 2014 (Arising out of SLP (Crl.) No.5024 of 2012 Titan Dey …Appellant Versus State of Tripura …Respondent O R D E R Leave granted.
This appeal by special leave arises out of an order dated 12th August, 2011 passed by the High Court of Gauhati whereby Criminal Appeal No.57 of 2005 has been dismissed and the petitioner’s conviction for offences punishable under Sections 302, 364 and 511 read with Section 34, IPC and Section 27 of the Arms Act affirmed. It is not necessary for us to set out the factual matrix in which the appeal has been filed as the judgment and order passed by the courts below sufficiently do so. All that we need mention is that the petitioner and three others are alleged to have attempted to kidnap one Apurba Basak (PW-1) from his house in Tripura for which purpose all of them appear 3 to have entered the house of the victim and tried to drag him away. Alerted by the resultant noise, the parents and sister of the petitioner-Apurba Basak came out of their room and tried to intervene to prevent the miscreants from taking Apurba Basak away. In the process, the accused are alleged to have used an AK-47 rifle apart from sharp-edged weapons to brutally assault the parents of Apurba Basak as a result whereof both of them succumbed to the injuries on the spot. Sister of Apurba Basak was also seriously injured in the unfortunate incident but survived to appear as a witness on behalf of the prosecution, apart from Apurba Basak who was examined as PW-1 in the case. Both Apurba Basak and his sister fully supported the prosecution version before the Trial Court who eventually came to the conclusion that the charge framed against the petitioner had been proved on all counts and accordingly convicted him for the offences mentioned earlier and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life for the offence of murder and for other terms separately for other offences with a direction that the sentence shall run consecutively. An appeal preferred by the petitioner 4 against the judgment of conviction and sentence was heard and dismissed by the High Court thereby affirming the findings of the Trial Court not only in regard to the complicity of the petitioner in the commission of the crime but also regarding the plea of juvenility raised by him. When the present special leave petition came up for preliminary hearing for the first time on 5th July, 2012, this Court issued notice to the respondent-State limited to the following two questions:
1) Whether the petitioner was a juvenile on the date of commission of the offence within the meaning of The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 and
2)Whether the sentence awarded to the petitioner can be directed to run concurrently instead of the same running consecutively as directed by the trial court and affirmed by the High Court.
When the matter again came up for hearing before this Court on 1st May, 2013, it was contended on behalf of the petitioner that although the courts below had concurrently held that the documents produced by the petitioner in support of his claim of juvenility were 5 fabricated hence unworthy of any credence, yet the question of juvenility could be examined by reference to the medical examination of the petitioner. Accepting that submission and relying upon the decision of this Court in Ashwani Kumar Saxena v. State of M.P. (2012) 9 SCC 750, we had directed a medical examination of the petitioner to determine his age as on the date of the incident. Principal of Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, Calcutta was for that purpose asked to constitute a Board of Doctors to determine after such medical tests as may be considered necessary the age of the petitioner as on 1st June, 2003 – the date of occurrence.
Pursuant to the said order a report has been received from the National Medical College and Hospital, Calcutta, according to which the petitioner was not a juvenile on the date of the commission of the crime. There is, in our opinion, no reason for us to reject that report especially when the same has been submitted after a detailed medical examination by a Board of Doctors constituted for that purpose. Mr. Goswamy, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner 6 also did not question the report and submitted that the sentence awarded to the petitioner could be directed to run concurrently instead of consecutively as directed by the courts below. That being the position, our answer to question no.1 is in the negative for we hold that the petitioner was not a juvenile as on the date of the commission of the crime.
As regards question no.2 also we see no reason much less a compelling one to take a view different from the one taken by the Trial Court and the High Court. The incident in question, it is noteworthy, led to the killing of an innocent couple whose only fault was that they intervened to prevent the accused from taking their son away for ransom. The circumstances in which the incident took place show the desperate character of the persons concerned including the petitioner herein. Even young girl who rushed to rescue her brother was not spared by the assailants who grievously injured and disabled her for life. The gravity of the offence committed by the petitioner and his partners in crime, the circumstances in which the gruesome crime was committed and the manner in which 7 innocent people were gun down without any remorse do not, in our opinion, call for any interference with the exercise of the discretion vested in the Trial Court and the High Court in directing that the sentences awarded to the accused shall run consecutively. There is no merit in this appeal which fails and is hereby dismissed.
………………………………….…..…J. (T.S. THAKUR) ………………………………….…..…J. (ADARSH KUMAR GOEL) …………………………..……………..J. New Delhi, (R. BANUMATHI) November 25, 2014