CHANDRA BONIA Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal against the conviction has been filed against the concurrent findings recorded by the trial court and the High Court for a double murder committed on 7th October,1990 for which the Appellant was sentenced for life on two counts, both sentences to run concurrently.

(2.) As per the prosecution story, Somra Munda and Agnash Munda, the father and brother of the first informant were murdered during the night of 7th October, 1990 in their house. The First Information Report was lodged by Chukhnu Munda at Police Station Marian on the 8th October, 1990 alleging that during his absence from the house some persons had murdered his father and younger brother. During the course of the investigation, the police recorded the statement of various witnesses including PW 1 Pradip Das and PW 2 Niran Bonia (who were both declared hostile), PW 5, the Medical Officer who had conducted the post mortem on the two dead bodies, PW 6 the informant and PW 7 Baloni Bawri, who was a neighbor of the deceased, and to whom the accused had made an extra judicial confession on the date of the murder itself and PW 12 the Investigating Officer who was also a witness to the recovery of the murder weapon at the instance of the accused. The trial court and the High Court have both noticed that as the solitary eye witness had died and the other two material witnesses PW 1 and PW 2 had been declared hostile, the prosecution story rested exclusively on the confession made by the accused to PW 7 and the factum of recovery of the dao at the instance of the accused before PW 12 the Investigating Officer.

(3.) At the hearing before us today, Mr. Praneet Ranjan, the learned Amicus Curiae for the accused - Appellant has argued that the only evidence against the accused was the extra judicial confession made before PW 7 and as this evidence was a weak kind of evidence, the conviction of the Appellant could not be maintained. He has further submitted that police had, in fact, used third degree methods and tortured and threatened the witnesses to give false evidence and as such the case against the Appellant appeared to be a concocted one.