VIDYA SAGAR Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal and criminal appeal No. 579 of 1976 were ordered to be listed for hearing together. As the respondents in criminal appeal No. 579 of 1976 do not appear to have been arrested in pursuance of the non-bailable warrants which were issued against them, and are not before this Court, we have heard the arguments only in Vidya Sagar's appeal No. 236 of 1971 and shall examine the evidence which bears on it.

(2.) The case arose out of first information report Ex. Ka 1 lodged by Mohan Singh P.W. 1 at 6.40 p.m., at police station Lar situated at a distance of about a mile from Lar town where the incident is alleged to have taken place at about 4 p.m. on July 6, 1968. Vinod Kumar alias Jhabar was a poor boy aged about 12 years. He lived in village Lar, where the accused also used to live. Vinod Kumar is said to have been employed by Kapil Deo, (accused), some 4 or 5 days before the incident, to work at his house. He therefore lived in his employer's house and took his meals there. It has been alleged that some boys of the locality where Kapil Deo used to live with his wife Smt. Sheo Kumari (accused), his brother Ramapati (accused), and his son Vidya Sagar (accused) were playing near their house. Kapil Deo and Ramapati came to their house at about 4 p.m. They scolded the boys for playing there. They took away appellant Vidya Sagar and Vinod Kumar inside the house and asked the other boys to go away. The other boys including Mohan Singh P.W. 1, Hridyanand P.W.2 and Akhilanand P.W. 3, stopped playing for a while, but resumed the play after Kapil Deo, Ramapati, Vinod Kumar and Vidya Sagar went inside the house. While playing, they heard the cry of Vinod Kumar. They climbed the jangla of the house of the accused and saw what was happening inside it. A door of another room inside the house was open, and, they saw that while Kapil Deo and Ramapati were holding Vinod Kumar against the wall of that room, appellant Vidya Sagar was cutting his throat with a big knife. The boys raised an alarm. Appellant Vidya Sagar thereafter came out from the northern door of the house wearing an underwear, with a blood-stained knife in his hand, and ran away. Smt. Sheo Kumari closed the doors of the room and the window. In the mean time some people assembled outside the house and they and Mohan Singh P.W. 1, Hridyanand P.W. 2 and Akhilanand P.W. 3 ran after Vidya Sagar, but could not catch him. Mohan Singh P.W. 1 then went and lodged the first information report (Ex. Ka 1) at police station Lar as aforesaid. Sub-Inspector Markandey Singh P.W. 11 registered a case and took up the investigation. He found that some persons had collected outside the house of the accused and were making inquiries from Kapil Deo and Ramapati. Markandey Singh also made inquiries and it is alleged that Kapil Deo and Ramapati ultimately pointed out the trunk in which the dead body of Vinod Kumar was found in a gunny bag in a room in their house. A blood-stained pyajama of Vidya Sagar is also alleged to have been found inside the trunk and it appeared to Markandey Singh that some portions of the house had been freshly washed to remove the blood-stains. The dead body of Vinod Kumar was examined by Dr. A.B. Das Gupta and his report Ex. Ka. 17 has been placed on the record. The pyajama of the appellant was sent for chemical examination and found to be stained with human blood. A challan was put up against Kapil Deo, his brother Ramapati, his wife Smt. Sheo Kumari and his son Vidya Sagar for the commission of offences under Section 302, Section 302 read with Section 34 and Section 201 read with Section 34, I.P.C. All of them were committed for trial to the Court of Session, and were tried by the Second Temporary Civil and Sessions Judge of Deoria. While the prosecution examined Mohan Singh P.W. 1, Hridyanand P.W. 2 and Akhilanand P.W. 3 as eye witnesses, and Saklu Gond P.W. 4 and some other witnesses, and relied on some pieces of circumstantial evidence, the accused merely stated that they had been falsely implicated due to enmity. They did not lead any evidence in their defence.

(3.) By his judgment dated October 27, 1970, the trial Judge convicted appellant Vidya Sagar of an offence under Section 302, I.P.C. He convicted the other accused Kapil Deo, Ramapati and Smt. Sheo Kumari of an offence under Section 302 read with Section 34, I.P.C. He sentenced all the four accused to death. He however acquitted them of the offence under Section 201 read with Section 34, I.P.C.