KESHAV JANGDE @ BALLA Vs. STATE OF C.G.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Two appellants herein have preferred this criminal appeal under Sec. 374(2) of the CrPC questioning the impugned judgment passed by the 4th Additional Sessions Judge, Raipur in Sessions Trial No.53/2012, by which the appellants herein have been convicted for offences under Ss. 302, 450 & 397 of the IPC and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and pay fine of Rs. 500/- each, in default, to further undergo simple imprisonment for seven days; rigorous imprisonment for five years and pay fine of Rs. 100/- each, in default, to further undergo simple imprisonment for seven days; and rigorous imprisonment for five years and pay fine of Rs. 100.00 each, in default, to further undergo simple imprisonment for seven days, respectively.

(2.) Case of the prosecution, in short, is that in the intervening night of 28th & 29/10/2011 at Village Murethi, Police Station Mandir Hasoud, the two appellants herein trespassed the house of complainant Jitaran Das Bande (PW-1) and snatched silver & gold articles from his wife Smt. Punni Bai and murdered her by deadly weapons, and thereby committed the offence. It is the further case of the prosecution that complainant Jitaran Das Bande (PW-1) and his wife were living at Village Murethi, they had eight married daughters and at the relevant point of time, all were married and staying in their maternal house and the appellants are their grand-sons in relation. Jitaran Das Bande (PW-1) - complainant, lodged dehati nalsi vide Ex.P-1 that on 28/10/2011, in the afternoon, he along with his wife was at home and at that time, his daughter Raj Kumari came there and after meeting them returned back to her home and thereafter, in the evening at about 4.00 p.m., after giving understanding to his wife to stay alert, he along with his nephew grand-sons i.e. the appellants herein went to Village Chapora to meet his daughter Munni Bai and thereafter, the appellants herein returned back to village and on 29/10/2011 at about 7.00 a.m., the complainant went from Village Chapora to Village Chote Donde to meet his another daughter Santoshi Bai and was staying in the house of Santoshi Bai; at 9.30 a.m. his son-in-law Chandrika Satnami (PW-17) came there and informed him that his mother-in-law Punni Bai is lying dead inside the house in the village as informed by Tekram Satnami (PW-9) & Karan Satnami over telephone. In the mean while, Rohit Satnami came on his motorcycle with whom Jitaran Das Bande (PW-1) came back to his house, when he reached to the house, he noticed that lights of his house were on, gate was open and his wife Punni Bai was lying dead on floor in front of the door of house, her ornaments were snatched and all the household items were scattered; it appeared to him that some unknown person had committed her murder after looting the mangal sutra and silver & gold ornaments of Punni Bai (deceased). On the basis of said dehati nalsi, dehati morgue intimation Ex.P-2 and morgue intimation Ex.P-19 were registered and thereafter, FIR Ex.P-20 was registered for offences punishable under Ss. 302, 397 & 450 of the IPC. Thereafter, the appellants were apprehended and on the basis of memorandum statement of appellant No.1 Keshav Jangde vide Ex.P-26, the investigating officer has seized one bamboo stick and clothes which were wore by him at the time of incident vide Ex.P-27. On the basis of memorandum of appellant No.1, the looted ornaments i.e. one pair of silver anklet weighing 190-200 gm. amounting Rs. 1,000.00 and one old mangal sutra weighing about 8.5 gm., which has 5 gold leafs weighing about 3.5 gm. were also seized from one Radhabai Sonwani (PW-3) vide Ex.P-10 and her statement was also recorded under Sec. 161 of the CrPC in which she has admitted that same were given to her by appellant No.1. Similarly, from the memorandum statement of appellant No.2 Dhanesh Jagnde vide Ex.P-28, seizure of one bullock cart's wheel's stick, which was used as weapon of offence, was made from one mud pit behind the school at Village Murethi and clothes worn by appellant No.2 at the time of incident were also seized vide Ex.P-30 in presence of Chandrika Dhritlahre (PW-17). Thereafter, identification of recovered articles was conducted by Additional Tahsildar Brijnath Sai (PW-14) in presence of Hariram Nirmalkar (PW-10) & Ajay Verma (PW-11) vide Exs.P-7 & P-21. Rajkumari Dhritlahre (PW8) - daughter of the deceased identified the looted articles vide Ex.P-21 and Shantilal Begani (PW-15) made statement before the court that the jewellery produced by the police was purchased from his shop and he also recognised the stolen ornaments. On the recommendation of panchas, postmortem of the dead body of the deceased was conducted by Dr. S.K. Bagh (PW-12) vide Ex.P-22 in which the deceased was found to have suffered eight injuries on vital parts of the body and cause of death was excessive bleeding from head and injuries, and death was stated to be homicidal in nature. As per the query report Ex.P-24, death could be caused by the murder-weapon seized from the two appellants.

(3.) Statements of the witnesses were recorded under Sec. 161 of the CrPC. After usual investigation, the accused / appellants were charge-sheeted for offences under Ss. 302, 450 & 392 read with Sec. 397 of the IPC and charge-sheet was filed before the jurisdictional criminal court and the case was committed to the Court of Sessions from where the 4th Additional Sessions Judge, Raipur received the case on transfer for trial and for hearing and disposal in accordance with law.