BHADDU Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the appeal of the accused Bhaddu preferred from jail, who on his conviction under section 304 Part- II of the I.P.C., has been sentenced to four years RI.

(2.) Incident is of the intervening night of 23rd June and 24th June, 1984. Sumarlal is a person deceased. He was the appellant accuseds uncle, who being a widower used to live and eat at the house of the appellant accused himself. On the night of 23rd June, 1984, when the appellant-accused and his brother-in-law P.W. 1 Bhuwansha were taking their dinner, the appellant-accuseds uncle Sumarlal came. He was denied meals by the appellant-accused who told him that he did not do any work, on which the deceased replied that henceforth he would do some work. On this, the appellant accused, being annoyed, was stated to have given lathi-blows to Sumarlal, now deceased, and to have given him some first blows in his abdominal region. Consequently, Sumarlal died. The appellant accused himself made extra-judicial confession to certain village folk on the next day morning. Report of the incident was lodged at the police station. Autopsy on the dead body was done. Autopsy Surgeon P.W. 6 Dr. Thakur found a crack fracture on the left parietal bone, which in his opinion, was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. The appellant-accused was then put up for trial under section 302 of the I.P.C. The appellant accused abjured the guilt and claimed to be ignorant of the circumstances, as to how, his uncle Bhaddu Vs. The State of M.P. had died. The trial Court relying on the eyewitness account of P.W. 1 Bhuwansha and the extra-judicial confession, convicted and sentenced the appellant-accused to the extent as stated at the outset. Hence, now, the present appeal.

(3.) Advocate Mrs. Mann, appearing as an Amicus-Curiae, for the appellant-accused, has urged that the solitary evidence of P.W. 1 Bhuwansha was not reliable and considering the nature of the incident and the injuries, the case at worst that could be made out was one only under section 323 of the I.P.C. In support of her arguments, judgment dated 7.9.1981 in Criminal Appeal No. 933/78 Vichitra Singh and Another v. State of M.P. was relied on.