10/03/2026
1. This acquittal appeal has been preferred by the appellant/State
against the judgment dated 19.8.2013 passed by the learned 1 st
Additional Sessions Judge, Durg, District-Durg, (C.G.), in S.T. No.
86/2012 by which respondents herein has been acquitted of the
charges punishable under Section 302/34 of IPC.
2. Brief facts of the case, is that, the deceased Rajkumari Maggo,
who was the grandmother of the accused Sanjeev Dhawan, was
the head of the household and resided in her house situated at
Mohan Nagar along with the other deceased persons, namely her
son Ravi Maggo, her granddaughter Kumari Reema Maggo, and
her grandson/ alleged deceased Deepak. The deceased
Rajkumari had great affection for the accused Sanjeev Dhawan,
who is the son of her daughter Kanchan, and owing to such
affection, the accused frequently visited her from his village and
spent time conversing with her. During the course of such
interactions, the accused allegedly misled the deceased by
weaving deceptive stories and induced her to part with a
substantial amount of money on the pretext of establishing a
source of employment. Believing the assurances given by the
accused and trusting him as her grandson, the deceased
Rajkumari agreed to his request and, in order to financially assist
him, mortgaged/sold her plot and advanced a sum of
approximately Rs. 18 lakhs to the accused Sanjeev Dhawan as a
loan for the purpose of setting up a plant. It is alleged that with the
said amount, the accused established a water pouch
manufacturing factory and, in the initial stages, in order to
maintain the confidence of the deceased and avoid any suspicion,
he used to remit certain amounts into her bank account in the
form of installments. However, subsequently, either due to a
change in his financial circumstances, alleged losses incurred in
the factory, or due to a dishonest intention developing on his part,
the accused stopped sending any further payments and began
contemplating ways to evade repayment of the loan amount.
Meanwhile, the deceased Rajkumari had fixed the marriage of her
granddaughter, the deceased Kumari Reema Maggo, and on
account of the impending marriage she was in urgent need of
money, due to which she repeatedly demanded that the accused
Sanjeev Dhawan return the amount advanced to him. The
accused, however, continued to avoid repayment by making
various excuses. According to the prosecution, the accused
apprehended that the deceased Rajkumari would continue to
exert pressure upon him for the return of the money and that such
persistent demands might ultimately expose the truth. With the
intention of preventing the matter from coming to light and freeing
himself from the liability of repayment, the accused allegedly
conceived a plan to eliminate his grandmother. In furtherance of
this plan, the accused Sanjeev Dhawan is stated to have involved
his associate Ranjit Paswan in the conspiracy and persuaded him
to assist in carrying out the act, and prior to the date of the
incident, both of them allegedly proceeded from Dhanbad,
Jharkhand, towards Durg with the intention of executing their plan.
Before reaching Durg, the accused Sanjeev Dhawan
telephonically contacted the deceased Kumari Reema Maggo and
informed her that he would be arriving late at night, requesting her
to keep the door open for him. It is alleged that the accused had
brought with him a large quantity of sleeping pills which he mixed
in a sliced edible substance or drink and, upon reaching the
house, represented the same to the family members as prasad,
thereby inducing them to consume it. After consuming the said
mixture, all the family members fell asleep, however, none of them
died. Soon after drinking the mixture, Deepak vomited, which
aroused suspicion in the mind of the accused that the presence of
an intoxicating or poisonous substance in the drink might be
discovered. Consequently, on the date of the incident, i.e.,
02.09.2011 at about 6:30 a.m., the accused sent his cousin
Deepak Maggo to a nearby shop and thereafter, in his absence,
both the accused persons jointly committed the murder of
Rajkumari Maggo, Kumari Reema Maggo and Ravi Maggo by
slitting their throats one by one with a knife. After committing the
murders, co-accused Ranjeet Paswan broke the lock of the back
door with a pair of scissors and threw the same into a water tank
in order to conceal the evidence. Thereafter, both the accused
wrapped the blood-stained mattress covers and pillow covers,
along with the knife used in the commission of the offence, and
disposed of them by throwing them into a drain situated near the
Gurudwara. Subsequently, both the accused proceeded towards
Rajendra Chowk where they waited for a bus and from there
telephonically called Deepak Maggo and summoned him.
Thereafter, accused Sanjeev Dhawan sent Deepak Maggo to
Raipur on a motorcycle along with Ranjeet Paswan while he
himself travelled to Raipur by bus, and from there all three
proceeded towards Sambalpur. However, before reaching their
destination they alighted from the bus and travelled by auto-
rickshaw to the Samlai Temple where they sat near a canal
located behind the temple. At that point, Sanjeev Dhawan
received a phone call from his brother and during the course of
the conversation Deepak Maggo became suspicious, whereupon
he was allegedly pushed into the canal and his body was carried
away by the flowing water. Meanwhile, Dharam Singh (PW-1),
who was residing in the house of the deceased as a tenant, woke
up at about 7:00 a.m. on the morning of the incident for his daily
routine and went to use the bathroom, where he noticed that
Kumari Reema Maggo was lying covered with a sheet and
appeared to be sleeping while no other member of the family was
visible. Dharam Singh and his mother regularly used the bathroom
belonging to their landlord, the deceased Ravi Maggo. After about
fifteen to twenty minutes he left for his work and returned around
2:00 p.m., when he again opened the lock of the channel gate and
went to wash his hands and face in the bathroom, at which time
he observed that the back door of the house was open. At that
moment a girl named Soni, also known as Chandni (PW-4), who
lived nearby, arrived and informed him that as no one was present
in the house of Ravi Maggo the milkman had left their milk there,
whereupon she entered the kitchen and began heating the milk.
After closing the back door, both of them locked the channel gate
and left the premises. Later in the evening at about 8:00-8:30
p.m., when Dharam Singh returned from work, it was noticed that
none of the members of Ravi Maggo’s family had been seen
throughout the day. The channel gate outside was locked,
whereas none of the internal doors were locked. Thereafter,
Chandni alias Soni (PW-4), Dharam Singh (PW-1) and his mother
Baljit entered the house after opening the channel gate lock.
During this time Chandni removed the curtain from the window
and noticed a person’s leg lying on the bed, which raised
suspicion. Consequently, neighbours were gathered and Dharam
Singh informed the police. On the basis of this information, the in-
charge of Mohannagar Police Outpost, Aditya Sharma (PW-15),
recorded the First Information Report at 21:30 hours as Exhibit
P-1 and registered Crime No. 491/2011 under Section 302 of the
Indian Penal Code, initially expressing suspicion against Deepak
Maggo. On the same night, merg numbers 34, 35 and 36 were
also registered and an inquiry into the cause of death was initiated
under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. During the
investigation, witnesses were summoned and the bodies were
identified, and upon inspection of the scene of occurrence it was
found that the house of Ravi Maggo, situated about 100 metres
behind the Gurudwara in Durg city, contained three rooms
occupied by the family, while Dharam Singh resided as a tenant in
the first room. In one room the body of Rajkumari was found lying
on a double bed with a blood-stained bedsheet and a visible injury
mark on the neck, while an iron almirah was found open with
clothes scattered and three jewellery boxes lying empty. In
another room the body of Kumari Reema was found lying on a
wooden sofa with blood stains and a similar injury mark on the
neck, while the almirah in that room remained untouched and the
kitchen nearby contained used tea leaves after straining tea. In a
third room the body of Ravi Maggo was found lying on a double
bed with blood-stained bedding and a similar injury mark on the
neck, and the room contained a sofa set, two centre tables, a
dining table with five chairs and a television on a stand.
Significantly, no signs of struggle were found in any of the rooms.
During the inquest proceedings the investigating officer seized a
glass containing a small quantity of tea from the centre table in
Ravi Maggo’s room as per seizure memo Exhibit P-26, and also
seized the tea-making bowl, strainer and used tea leaves from the
kitchen platform as per Exhibit P-27. Considering the
circumstances, the three bodies were sent to the District Hospital,
Durg for post-mortem examination, where Dr. Yashwantrao
Dumde (PW-10) opined that the throats of the deceased had been
cut with a sharp-edged weapon and that death had occurred due
to shock resulting from excessive bleeding caused by the cutting
of the windpipe and major blood vessels. The post-mortem
examination conducted on 03.09.2011 between 2:30 p.m. and
4:30 p.m. indicated that the deaths had occurred within the
preceding 24 to 36 hours and were homicidal in nature. During
further investigation statements of various witnesses were
recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,
and on the basis of the memorandum statement of accused
Sanjeev Dhawan a steel knife measuring approximately six inches
in length, bearing blood stains and sharp on one side, was
recovered as per seizure memo Exhibit P-11, while a large pair of
scissors concealed in the water tank was recovered at the
instance of co-accused Ranjeet Paswan as per Exhibit P-12, after
which both accused were arrested. The accused further disclosed
that the mattress and pillow covers along with a knife had been
thrown into a drain, and although the drain was searched on
17.12.2011 nothing could be recovered due to excessive mud and
filth and a panchnama was prepared accordingly. During further
investigation, statements of witnesses from Jharkhand and other
places were recorded, a Videocon mobile phone was seized from
Madhu alias Madha which had been obtained from a person
named Kargil who claimed to have found it near a river bank, and
site maps of relevant places including the canal near Sambalpur
where Deepak had allegedly been drowned were prepared. On
19.12.2011, the accused Sanjeev Dhawan produced from his
house at village Lodna, District Dhanbad, Jharkhand, an SBI
passbook in the names of the deceased Rajkumari and Ravi
Kumar along with other documents including a post office
passbook, an ICICI Bank ATM card, PAN cards, a rexine purse
and a Nokia mobile handset, all of which were seized. The seized
articles including the steel knife, tea remnants, tea leaves, clothes
and bedsheets of the deceased and their viscera were sent for
chemical examination, which revealed the presence of blood on
the clothes but no chemical poison in the tea remnants, tea leaves
or viscera.