FIRURAM SAHU Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant- Firuram Sahu has preferred this criminal appeal under Sec. 374(2) of the CrPC questioning the impugned judgment dtd. 1/7/2023 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge (FTSC), Sakti, District ' Janjgair-Champa (C.G.) in Sessions Trial No. 47/2022, by which the appellant has been convicted and sentenced in the following manner with a direction to run all the sentences concurrently. <FRM>JUDGEMENT_53_LAWS(CHH)1_2024_1.html</FRM>

(2.) Case of the prosecution, in nutshell, is that accused Firuram Sahu lodged a report in Police Station, Hasaud that the deceased, wife of his younger brother Safed Ram Sahu, lives alone in the house adjacent to his house and her son lives in Korba and doing a private job. On 9/5/2022, his wife Savitri Sahu and granddaughter Jessica Sahu slept at night after taking dinner and his wife has seen the deceased in her house at 6 o'clock in the evening, who was doing some work. After that, on 10/5/2022, at 6 A.M., accused Firuram got up and went to bathroom, his wife Savitri Sahu also got up and was going towards lanter to check water, then suddenly she shouted that the deceased has been murdered. Thereafter, accused Firuram, Dashrath Karsh, Savitri and Kalawati ran towards the house of the deceased and found that the house was locked from inside. Thereafter, Kalavati entered into house of the deceased by jumping the boundary wall and opened the door from inside and they went straight to the courtyard and saw that the deceased was lying in unconscious state on the cot, there was serious injury on her head, skull was torn, there was lot of blood clot under the cot, some unknown person had entered into the house of the deceased and committed her murder by hitting over her head by some hard object. On the basis of said report, after recording information about famine and sudden death as Merg No.19/2022 vide Ex.P-21, FIR under Sec. 302 of IPC was registered against unknown person vide Ex.P-22 and investigation was started. During the course of investigation, inquest over the dead body of the deceased was prepared vide Ex.P-10. Dead body of the deceased was sent for postmortem to Community Health Centre, Jaijaipur vide Ex.P-4 and application for conducting postmortem was given vide Ex.P-5. Thereafter Dr. Sashiprabha Banjare (PW-10) has conducted postmortem vide Ex.-P-6 and found following injuries :

(3.) After due investigation, to identify the unknown an informer was appointed, to whom the complainant ' Firuram Sahu himself told that he had murdered his sister-in-law (babhi) due to land dispute. Thereafter on interrogation, accused Firuram told that he had murdered the deceased. His memorandum statement was recorded vide Ex.P-11, in which he has accepted that due to land dispute, he entered into the house of the deceased at 2.00 P.M. in the intervening night of 09-10/5/2022 and assaulted the deceased by Tessie (brick cutter) three times on her head, who was sleeping alone in her courtyard and when the deceased passed out, after closing the courtyard door of house from inside, he jumped over the wall, took Tessie with him to his house, washed and hide it behind the bathroom and slept in his room.