STATE OF WEST BENGAL Vs. BABAR ALI MONDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The aforesaid six Criminal Appeals and the proceeding upon reference under Section 366 of the Cr.P.C. made to this Court by the Trial Court for confirmation of sentence of death passed against the appellants since arising out of a common judgement and order, all are taken up for hearing together and are disposed of by this judgement.

(2.) In the trial all the appellants were found guilty under Section 396 of the Indian Penal Code and accordingly they being convicted thereunder, each of them were sentenced to death and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/- and in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year. Similarly, all the appellants were sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/- each and in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year for their conviction under Section 395 of the Indian Penal Code.

(3.) Shorn of details the case of the prosecution goes like this; The defacto-complainant Bimal Das, the P.W. 1 along with the other members of his family, viz., his son P.W. 5 Bidyut Das, the daughter P.W. 4 Barsha Das and his wife Chandana Das, were residing together in the third floor of the premises No. 7, Lenin Sarani, Kanchrapara within the Police Station Bijpur. The defacto-complainant was a jeweller by profession, having his shop room and workshop situated in the ground floor of the said premises. The P.W. 2 Abhijit Paul and P.W. 3 Niranjan Paul @ Gosai are the employees of defactocomplainant and at the time of incident they were present at the workshop. On the fateful night at about 3 hours the defacto-complainant woke up from his sleep due to barking of dogs and then on being attracted by some noises opened the door of his room and found 5/7 young persons wearing barmuda pants were trying to break open the collapsible gate of his bedroom. At the same time his wife Chandana Das also woke up as well as his son P.W. 5 Bidyut Das and as on being asked by the defacto-complainant, as his wife Chandana Das rushed to the balcony for seeking help from their neighbours, when the miscreants who were already hiding there, threw her down from the verandah as soon as she identified one of them and shouted Surya Tui . Thereafter, the miscreants having entered their bedroom on the point of firearms took the defacto-complainant and his son P.W. 5 to the workshop situated at the ground floor, there they forced the P.W. 2 and P.W. 3 who were inside the workshop to open the door and on the point of firearms keeping all four of them silent looted away huge ornaments, cash money from the iron chest and also snatched the Mobile Phone from the defactocomplainant and fled away from the spot. The police receiving information about such crime arrived at the spot and after obtaining a written complaint from the P.W. 1 Bimal Das, commenced investigation.