VIDHNIBAI Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant appeal is against the Judgment/Order dtd. 29/9/2014 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Pratappur, District Surajpur passed in Sessions Trial No. 25 of 2011 whereby the appellants were convicted under sec. 302/34 of IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment. Further the appellants were also directed to pay a fine of 500.00 each, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for 15 days.

(2.) The case of prosecution is that both the accused, the appellants herein, and the deceased Deolal Kodaku were related to each other. On 24/10/2010, the dead body of Deolal Kodaku was found in the Courtyard of the appellants. Thereafter, when the postmortem was conducted, the death was found to be homicidal in nature. During the investigation, it was revealed that on 23/10/2010 while the deceased Deolal and his wife Dasharo were coming back from Bhaisamuda market, on the way, at village Darhora, they met the accused-appellants and all they had gone to the house of accused Sukhdev. In the night, the deceased and his wife stayed in the house of appellants and consumed liquor. Next day morning, Dasharo, wife of Deolal went to her house to cook food and thereafter at about 4 p.m., when she again came back to the house of accused the dead body of Deolal was found in the courtyard of the accused-appellants and the marks of burn injuries were present on head, face, both the arms and legs, abdomen of deceased. As per the prosecution case, a dispute about partition of landed property was existing between Sukhdeo Kodaku, appellant and deceased Deolal for a long time. Consequently in such back ground the deceased Deolal was assaulted on his head and several parts of the body were subjected to burns. On the basis of memorandum of the accused, the articles were seized i.e., Scarf (Gamcha), Sarai wood log etc., and after investigation the charge sheet was filed and subsequently they were put to trial by the Sessions Court.

(3.) During the course of trial, the appellants abjured the guilt and pleaded innocence. The prosecution, in support of its case, examined 15 witnesses namely P.W. 1 Parsuram, P.W. 2 Krishna, P.W. 3 Naan, P.W. 4 Raghunath, P.W. 5 Mahajan Ram, P.W. 6 Shatruhan Porte, P.W. 7 Dasharo Bai, P.W. 8 Sukhmaniya, P.W. 9 Dr. A.K. Vishwakarma, P.W. 10 Lalsay, P.W. 11 Ramuram Singh, P.W. 12 Janki and P.W. 13 K.D. Prabhakar.