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8. At the outset, it must be mentioned that while A-2, A-3 and A-4 were on bail during the pendency of the appeals, bail was declined to A-1.

9. Learned counsel for the Appellants first submitted that in the present cases, the conviction under Section 397 IPC was unsustainable in law since the knives that were purportedly recovered - one from the spot itself and the others subsequently at the instance of the accused- were not shown to be deadly weapons, and in any event, were not shown to the two eye witnesses, i.e., PWs 1 and 2.They needed to identify that those were the very knives which were used in the commission of the crime. It is pointed out that although PW-2 is stated to have been injured, he was not medically examined. There was no medical evidence presented to show that the injury was caused by any of the recovered knives. In support of the above contentions, reliance was placed on the decisions in Balik Ram v. State 1983 Crl. L.J. 1438, Madan Lal v. State 1997 (70) DLT 595, Mukesh Parashar v. State 138 (2007) DLT 221, Rakesh Kumar v. State 2005 (1) JCC 334 and Charan Singh v. State 1988 Crl. L.J. NOC 28(Delhi). Reliance was also placed on the decisions in Samiuddin v. State 175 DLT 27 and Sunil v. State 2010(1) JCC 388.

10. Mr. Rajat Katyal, learned APP, on the other hand, submitted that the fact that all the accused were carrying knives had been spoken to by the labourers, i.e., PWs 8 to 12 and notwithstanding that the knives recovered may not have been shown to the witnesses, the offence under Section 397 IPC would still be attracted. He placed reliance on the two decisions of the Supreme Court in Phool Kumar v. Delhi Administration AIR 1975 905 and Ashfaq v. State 2004(3) SCC 116 and the decisions of this Court in Salim v. State 24 (1998) DLT 1, Ikram Ansari v. State (decision dated 24th February 2014 in Crl. A. No. 181 of 2013), Yaseen v. State (decision dated 25th February 2014 in Crl. A. No. 686 of 2013) and Rajender Yadav v. State (decision dated 7th March 2013 in Crl. A. 537 of 2012).

12. The words ‗uses any deadly weapon' was interpreted first by the Supreme Court in Phool Kumar. It was explained therein that the mere fact that the accused was ―carrying a deadly weapon open to the view of the victims sufficient to frighten or terrorize them‖ was enough to attract Section 397 IPC. The Supreme Court observed: ―Any other overt act, such as, brandishing of the knife or causing of grievous hurt with it was not necessary to bring the offender within the ambit of Section 397 of the Penal Code.‖ The Court chose to give identical meaning to the word ‗uses' in Section 397 IPC and ‗is armed' under Section 398 IPC.

―Thus, what is essential to satisfy the word ‗uses' for the purposes of Section 397 IPC is the robbery being committed by an offender who was armed with a deadly weapon which was within the vision of the victim so as to be capable of creating a terror in the mind of victim and not that it should be further shown to have been actually used for cutting, stabbing, shooting, as the case may be.‖

14. Since each of the accused in Ashfaq were wielding a deadly weapon on their own, the Supreme Court held that they could be convicted individually under Section 397 IPC, even without resorting to constructive liability under Section 34 IPC.