JAYANTA SIL Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a statutory appeal arising out of the judgment of the High Court dated 5th January, 2007.

(2.) The prosecution story is as under:

(3.) It also appears that soon after the incident Biswajit Das-PW.2 and Uday Dutta-PW.3 also reached the place from their houses some distance away and they too were told by PW.1 as to what had transpired. The evidence further is that Jayant, the appellant herein, rushed to the house of Nisikanta-PW.11 in the same village and requested him to let him stay for the night and when he left early the next day, PW.11 saw that he had left behind a khukri and a torch. The appellant and Dimbeshwar were accordingly brought to trial for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The Trial Court on a consideration of the evidence held that the statement of PW.1 could not be taken at its face value as there were discrepancies in her statement made in the FIR vis.-a-vis. the statement in Court and it appeared that she had not in fact seen the incident nor had seen the accused running away after committing the murder. Likewise it was held that the statements of PW.5 and PW.6 could not be believed as they were not eye-witnesses and were not clear as to the exact place where the incident had happened as there appeared to be some uncertainty as to whether it had taken place outside the house of the deceased or on the road opposite the gate. The Trial Court also opined that it was not believable that an accused would hang around long enough so that he could be identified by PWs 5 and 6 as this was against normal human conduct. It was further held that the story with regard to the recovery of a torch and the khukry from the house of PW.11 could not be believed more particularly as the weapon had not been sent to the laboratory to find out if it bore any bloodstains.