1 2025:CGHC:15314 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRA No. 312 of 2022 Smt. Teejmati Uraon S/o Late Tilakram Uraon Aged About 53 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Raigarh Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. ... Appellant(s) versus 1 - Shyamlal Patel S/o Keshav Patel Aged About 42 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 2 - Tikaram Patel S/o Ghashiram Patel Aged About 55 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 3 - Keshav Patel S/o Bandan Patel Aged About 60 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 4 - Harimohan Patel S/o Tikaram Patel Aged About 29 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 5 - Lekhram Uraon S/o Sunaram Uraon Aged About 39 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 6 - Nand Kumar Uraon S/o Bhakulal Uraon Aged About 47 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 7 - Premchand Yadav S/o Shyamji Yadav Aged About 26 Years R/o Village Kenapali, P.O. Dhanagar, Tahsil And District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 8 - Kartikram Uraon S/o Neharu Uraon Aged About 47 Years R/o Village Nansiya, P.O. Patelpali, Raigarh District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. KUNAL DEWANGAN Digitally signed by KUNAL DEWANGAN 2 9 - Prasant Kumar Nayak S/o Mahendra Kumar Nayak Aged About 25 Years R/o Village Kusmura, P.O. Kotra, P.S. Kotwali, District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 10 - Thana Prabhari Thana Jutemile, Assi Anjana Kerketta, District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. 11 - Umashankar Vishwal A.S.I., Thana Jutemile, Raigarh, District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. ... Respondent(s) For Appellant : Mr. Ravindra Sharma, Advocate. Hon’ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Order on Board 01.04.2025 1. Heard learned counsel for the appellant for grant of leave to appeal. 2. This appeal is directed against the impugned order dated 22.10.2021 passed by the Special Judge (Atrocities) Raigarh District-Raigarh, in SC/ST Complaint Case Filing No. 1648/2019, whereby the complaint filed by the appellant/complainant under Sections 302, 201, 120-B, 193, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203, 204, 212, 213, 214, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222 of IPC and Section 4 of Lok Sewak Dwara Kartavyon Ki Upeksha and Section 3, 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act, 1989, has been dismissed at motion stage without taking cognizance against the respondents/accused. 3. Brief facts of the case is that the appellant/complainant filed a complaint before the learned Special Judge under Sections 302, 201, 120-B, 193, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203, 204, 212, 213, 214, 218, 219, 3 220, 221, 222 of IPC and Section 4 of Lok Sewak Dwara Kartavyon Ki Upeksha and Section 3, 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act, 1989 against the accused. As per the complaint of the appellant/complainant, her son who was twenty six years old and was a professional as well as an efÏcient driver who works under respondent/accused No.1 Shyamlal Patel and respondent/accused No.2 Tikaram Patel died under suspicious circumstances on intervening night of 20.01.2021. On 04.01.2019, her son as per the direction of respondent No.1, went to Tamnar area for cutting the paddy along with one Premchand Yadav/respondent/accused No.7 and Kartik Ram Uraon/respondent No.8. On 19.01.2019 appellant's son returns back to the village and called her at around 07:00-08:00 pm that he has came back and will reach home after some time. The appellant waited for her son till 10:00 pm, thereafter when she called him his phone was out of network coverage area, but when he does not showed up later at night, appellant went for sleep. At around 01:00 am uncle of the deceased received a phone call from an unknown person stating that "Rajesh Uraon (deceased) is dead and you can come and identify the dead body at Main Hospital Raigarh". After getting the sad news, everybody from the family got panicked and without informing the appellant went to the hospital. The father of the deceased Tilak Ram Uraon, Uncle Lachhiram Uraon, cousin brother Shankar Lal and Janak Ram Uraon went to the hospital where the dead body was kept in cold room/mortuary. The ward boy refuse to show the dead body and said to come at 08:30 hrs in the morning for identification of dead body. On 20.01.2019 at around at 08:30 am appellant's family again went to the hospital and identified the dead body of deceased. 4 A.S.I. Umashankar Vishwal prepared Panchnama at around at 11:00 am. Later on the doctor at around 12:00 Hrs. conducted the postmortem of the dead body and around 02:00 pm the appellant’s family received the dead body. 4. As per the postmortem report, "01. cause of dead:- drowning cause to asphyxia followed by death, 02. Mode of death- Need to correlate with circumstantial evidence. 03. Time since death- Within 6 to 24 hours from to postmortem examination. The father of the deceased died under sadness on 22.01.2019 due to heart attack while performing last rituals of his son. As per the statement given by respondent No. 7 and respondent No. 8 before the Special Judge (Atrocities) Raigarh, they were present and last seen with the deceased at the time of suspicious death of deceased. When the appellant's family asked the accused persons about the suspicious dead of deceased they failed to give any satisfactory answer regarding the death. That Merg intimation No. 09/2019 was prepared by the Police and an F.I.R No. 170/2019 dated 03.03.2019 was registered against the deceased for the offences under Section 304- A of I.P.C. and without properly investigating the matter the police has submitted the closure report and closed the case. 5. The appellant/complainant and other family members approached the Police OfÏcials to lodge an F.I.R. against the accused persons/respondents and to conduct a fair investigation into the suspicious death of her son but the police ofÏcials have not lodged the report and also failed to conduct a fair investigation and submitted a closure report and close the case. Thereafter, the appellant also approached higher Police OfÏcials but all efforts went 5 in vain. The appellant/complainant aggrieved by the unwarranted attitude and behavior of the concerned police authority made approached the learned Special Court (Atrocities) and filed an application under Section 156 (3) of Cr. P.C. seeking direction to the Police OfÏcials for registration of F.I.R. under Sections 302, 201, 120B, 193, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203, 204, 212, 213, 214, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222 of I.P.C, section 4 of Lok Sewak Dwara Kartavyon Ki Upeksha and section 3, 3(2)(v) of SC/ST Act, 1989 against the proposed accused/respondents but till date no action has been taken. The appellant/complainant also filed a complaint case under Section 200 of Cr.P.C. seeking direction to the police authority to lodge an F.I.R. against the suspected accused/respondents herein, same was registered as Complaint Case No. 1648/2019 (filing No.). The Deputy Superintendent of Police submitted the inquiry report stated that deceased Rajesh was died due to accident. (copy of the complaint filed u/s 156(3) & 200 of Cr.P.C, report of Dy. S.P. AJAK Raigarh, documents filed before the court below and statements of the witnesses are being filed herewith as Annexure A-2) (Collectively). 6. The uncle of the deceased Lachhi Ram Uraon has filed an application dated 04.12.2019 under section 176 Cr.P.C. for inquiry before the District Magistrate Raigarh where statements of the witnesses were recorded and the same was rejected only on the ground that the complaint case has been dismissed by the Special Judge (Atrocities) Raigarh. The learned Special Judge (Atrocities) Raigarh vide order dated 22.10.2021 dismissed the complaint holding that sufÏcient material is not available for taking cognizance against the 6 respondents/accused despite the fact that the complainant and other witnesses have categorically stated about the suspicious death of Rajesh Kumar and there is suspicious circumstances which prima facie reveals the involvement of the respondents/ accused in the alleged crime. Hence, this appeal. 7. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that dismissal order of the unregistered complaint case bearing No. 1648/2019 (filing No.) dated 22.10.2021 has been passed without considering the facts of the case, statement of the witnesses, evidence available on record which is illegal, improper and without applying the legal mind. He further submits that the offence for which appellant is seeking the direction of F.I.R. are cognizable offence, as per the law established by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the matter of Lalita Kumari Vs. Government of U.P. (2014) 2 SCC 1 that it is the mandatory public duty of a police ofÏcer to register the F.I.R. whenever he receives a information of commission of an cognizable offence and conduct of fair investigation regarding the same. He also submits that the learned Special Judge erred in ignoring the suspicious circumstances and conduct of the respondents which clearly reveals that the respondents are trying to surpass the alleged incident and trying to flee away. The learned Special Judge erred in ignoring the postmortem report which states that "01. cause of dead- drowning cause to asphyxia followed by death, 02. Mode of death- need to correlate with circumstantial evidence. 03. Time since death- Within 6 to 24 hours from to postmortem examination and further the P.M. reports clearly states that there is no internal/external injury over the dead body, that there is no water content/water of pond found inside 7 the death body. As per the statement given by respondent No. 7 and respondent No. 8 before the Special Judge (Atrocities) Raigarh, they were present and last seen with the deceased at the time of suspicious death of deceased. 8. Learned counsel for the appellant further submits that as per the Merg Intimation report, the body of the deceased was brought to the hospital by respondent No.1 in dead condition and as per the statement of the village Kotwar, he visited the place of incident same day i.e. 20.01.2019 at 05:30 am but he did not find any tractor drowned into the pond or not seen any tractor in accidental condition near the pond nor he has seen any traces of accident marks near the pond. (statement is part of Annexure A-3). He further submits that as per the settled law whenever a police ofÏcer receives an information of commission of a cognizable offence he is duty bound to register the F.I.R. and conduct a fair investigation but in the present case the police has failed to perform their ofÏcer duty, therefore interference of this Hon'ble Court is required such that the aggrieved persons gets the justice and culprit gets punishment. Prima facie looking to the suspicious circumstances it is a clear-cut case of unnatural death and there is possibility of murder which requires a fair investigation in the interest of justice. The deceased was a professional and efÏcient driver and he was a village person and knows swimming, thus the story stated by the accused/respondents persons that the deceased has drowned into the pond is totally false and fabricated. The accused persons are rich and politically influential person due to which they have managed the matter/case and in addition threatening the complainant and her family member to withdraw the 8 case. As such, the criminal appeal deserves to be allowed and the impugned judgment deserves to be quashed. 9. I have heard learned counsel for the appellant and perused the prayers and pleadings made in the appeal along with the annexures annexed in the appeal. 10. From the perusal of the order passed by the learned Special Judge (Atrocities), it transpires that the investigation into the death of Rajesh Uraon revealed that the deceased was a son of appellant/complainant who was working as a driver under Shyam Lal Patel’s place/respondent No.1, he went to village Tamnar Amgaon to cut para (grass) in Mahindra tractor No. CG-13-AD-5573 owned by Prashant Nayak to complete his work. Tractor drivers Kartik Ram Uraon and Premchand Yadav had also gone with him in another tractor. After cutting para from Tamnar, they reached village Kenapali at around 11:00 PM. During this time, deceased Rajesh Uraon was driving tractor and Kartik Ram Uraon was driving another tractor. Premchand Yadav was sitting in the said tractor. During this time, Kartik Ram and Premchand were bringing their tractor from the farm side to park it in the granary located behind Shyam Lal's house, where the tractor was parked. While Rajesh Uraon/deceased was bringing the tractor to the granary from the pond route, due to the granary gate on the way, the tractor stopped at 11:00 PM. Rajesh Uraon was backing the tractor and during this the tractor overturned in the pond and Rajesh got stuck in the engine of the tractor and then he was later taken to the hospital, where Rajesh Uraon was declared dead by the doctor. The post-mortem report confirmed that the deceased death was occurred due to drowning and the incident 9 happened within 06-20 hours before the autopsy. The case diary and witness statements, including that of Dr. Prakash Chetwani, corroborate this fact. The investigation led to the registration of a case under Section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the filing of a final report. However, the learned Special Judge (Atrocities) has found insufÏcient grounds to proceed against the accused under various sections of the IPC, including Section 302 of the IPC, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Therefore, the learned Special Judge (Atrocities) has dismissed the complaint filed by the appellant/complainant. 11. Considering the submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant and also considering the findings recorded by the learned Special Judge (Atrocities) while rejecting the complaint filed by the appellant/complainant, I am of the considered opinion that the learned Special Judge (Atrocities) has not committed any illegality or irregularity which warrants interference by this Court. 12. Accordingly, I do not find any good ground for grant of leave to appeal against the judgment dated 22.10.2021. Accordingly, leave to appeal is dismissed and consequent thereto, criminal appeal is also dismissed. - Sd Sd/- (Ramesh Sinha) Chief Justice Kunal