DADU SAHU Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This criminal appeal under Sec. 374(2) of Cr.P.C. is directed against the impugned judgment dtd. 29/3/2014 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhatapara, District Balodabazar in Sessions Trial No.30/2012, by which appellants herein have been convicted for the offences under Ss. 302/34, 379, 201 and 435 of Indian Penal Code and sentenced as under with a direction to run all the sentences concurrently.

(2.) Case of the prosecution, in a nutshell, is that, in the intervening night of 7-8/06/2012 at Bhatapara, two appellants stolen the Truck No.CG-04-ZC-4805 loaded with 9 quintals of wheat owned by Gopal Sharma (PW-1) and wrongfully confined Bhupesh @ Golu, conductor of the truck, and assaulted him by iron pipe and thereby caused his murder and burnt the truck and wheat therein and thereby committed the aforesaid offences. Thereafter, complainant Gopal Sharma (PW-1) reported the matter to the police that he being transporter and owner of the truck in question, parked the truck loaded with wheat to be transported to J.D. Food Bilaspur, which he, in the morning, came to know at 8:30 that the truck in question was burning near Hathbandh Railway crossing and thereafter, on the report of the complainant, offence under Ss. 435 and 365 of I.P.C. has been registered. The spot map was prepared by Ex.P-3 and one Rohit Kumar (PW-10) lodged a Dehati Merg at Police Chowki Maro, District Bemetara that an unknown dead body is lying, pursuant to which, Merg No.0/12 was registered and shav-panchnama was conducted vide Ex.P-6 and dead body was sent for post-mortem, which was conducted by Dr. K.K.Dahariya (PW-20), who proved the post-mortem report Ex.P-25, in which cause of death was stated to be hemorrhagic shock due to multiple internal body organ laceration and death was homicidal in nature. Thereafter, Merg Intimation (Ex.P-24) was registered and memorandum statements of the appellants were recorded and pursuant to memorandum of appellant No.1, iron pipe was seized vide Ex.P-11 and from appellant No.2, bloodstained clothes was seized vide Ex.P-13, which were sent for FSL vide Ex.P-38 and the FSL report is Ex.P-40. After due investigation, the two appellants were charge-sheeted for the aforesaid offences before the jurisdictional criminal court, which was ultimately committed to the Court of Sessions for hearing and disposal in accordance with law, in which the appellants abjured their guilt and entered into defence stating that they have not committed any offence and they have been falsely implicated.

(3.) In order to bring home the offence, prosecution has examined as many as 21 witnesses and exhibited 40 documents alongwith Articles A-1 to A-11 and the appellant-accused in support of their defence have not examined any witness but exhibited the document Ex.D-1 i.e. statement of Kaleshwar Yadav @ Madan.