SUDHIR SAMANTA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three Appeals arise out of the Judgment of the High Court of Calcutta in Criminal Appeal No. 159 of 1982 dated 21-2-1986. By that judgment, the conviction and sentence of eight accused, has been confirmed. Aggrieved thereby Sudhir Samanta (accused No. 4) has filed Criminal Appeal No. 296 of 1987, S. K. Ejahar alias Asgar Hussain (accused No. 9) has filed Criminal Appeal No. 298 of 1987, Six others, namely, Supriya Paria (accused No. 1), Gajendra Nath Mondal (accused No. 2), Biswanath Bhowmick (accused No. 3), Kalachand Ghorai (accused No. 5) Nemai Das (accused No. 7) and Jagannath Mondal (accused No. 8), filed Special leave application No. 1656 of 1986 and in that petition by order dated 13-7-1987, leave was refused for Nemai Das and Biswanath Bhowmik accused Nos. 7 and 3 respectively. Leave was granted to others and the appeal has been registered as Criminal Appeal No. 297 of 1987, leaving Supriya Paria (accused No. 1), Gajendra Nath Mondal (accused No. 2), Kalachand Ghorai (accused No. 5) and Jagannath Mondal (accused No. 8) as appellants in Criminal Appeal No. 297 of 1986. We may also state that there was one more accused (in all nine initially) before the Sessions Court, namely S. K. Eshak (accused No. 6) but he died during the pendency of the case before the Sessions Court. The Sessions Court and the High Court, therefore, convicted and sentenced only eight accused. We have before us six accused, in three appeals namely, A4, A9, A5 whose cases were argued separately and A1, A2, A8, whose cases stand on somewhat different footing.

(2.) Before the Sessions Court, Midnapore, all the nine accused stood charged with commission of offence under Section 148 I.P.C.; Section 304 (Part 1) I.P.C. read with Section 149, I.P.C.; and Section 323, I.P.C. read with Section 149. By his judgment dated 6-5-1982, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the accused under all the above counts. He sentenced them to suffer rigorous imprisonment for two years for the offence under Section 148, I.P.C.; rigorous imprisonment for seven years and fine of Rs. 1000 (in default, rigorous imprisonment for one year more) for the offence under Section 304 Part 1, I.P.C. read with Section 149, I.P.C., and rigorous imprisonment for one year under Section 323, I.P.C. read with Section 149, I.P.C. The sentences were to run concurrently.

(3.) It is the prosecution case that in the incident dated 28-11-1979 Gurudas Mondal (P.W. 1) suffered injuries while his son Chittaranjan Mondal died.