ASHOK KUMAR BARIK Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A considerable part of the judgment under appeal has been written by the High court in compassionate tones towards the appellant not for the purposes of the court but for the State government to step in and give some remission or reprieve to the appellant.

(2.) The broad facts are these: The deceased was a young girl, aged about 17 years on the day of the occurrence. The appellant, a young bright student was engaged to be her private tutor. Parties belong to the same village, about 50 kms away from the town of Cuttack. Having been young, they fell in love with each other. Their respective parents/guardians individually sent them to Cuttack for further studies. Their affection with each other grew. When discovered, it became a sore point with the parents of the deceased because she was from a slightly higher class being goldsmith and the appellant was from an inferior classbeing barber. Their prospect of matrimony was thus out of the question due to the hard stand taken by the family of the deceased. It is in these circumstances that the appellant allegedly became frustrated which manifested in his wanting to kill his beloved. He took the opportunity on the fateful day when the deceased in the company of Public Witness 3, her old maidservant and Public Witness 5, her sister went out to answer the call of nature, where the appellant pounced on her and inflicted on her extensive injuries with bhujali, a kind of axe, on the vital parts of her body which did not extinguish her life then. She was then taken to the hospital whereat she was attended to and referred to a larger hospital. She died 7 days after the date of the occurrence. This in a nutshell is the prosecution case.

(3.) At the trial, the prosecution mainly rested on the evidence of PWs 3 and 5 and the corroborative evidence of Public Witness 8, the doctor who attended on the deceased and that of Public Witness 13 who performed the post-mortem examination of the deceased. Relying completely on the statements of PWs 3 and 5, terming Public Witness 3 as an independent witness, the court of Session recorded conviction of the appellant under Section 304 Part l Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to seven years' rigorous imprisonment. This verdict attracted cross-appeals before the High court. The High court altered the verdict establishing guilt of the appellant under Section 302 Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to life imprisonment, leaving marks in the judgment that it was a case of compassion for the State government to interfere and save the appellant from some of the rigours of law having regard to his humble background and his intelligence as a student and the achievement he had gained by successfully competing for a job.