NIMDHARI SINGH Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted of an offence under section 302 I.P.C. and sentenced to life imprisonment and to a fine of Rs. 500/- in default to R.I. for 6 months in Sessions Trial No. 4 of 1980 by the Additional Sessions Judge, Asansol. He was tried further for an offence under section 324, I.P.C. in respect of which he has been found guilty and sentenced to 3 years R.I. and a fine of Rs. 100/- in default to further R I. for 3 months. The sentences are to run concurrently. So he has come up in appeal. He has been in jail during the pendency of the appeal.

(2.) The appellant was a sentry constable on duty attached to Cokeoven P.S. Durgapur District, Burdwan at the time of occurrence namely, 9.30 P.M. on 11.9.75, He is alleged to have fired his rifle at Driver Subal Singh allotted to C.I.B. (Durgapur) while he was a standing in the room of the Duty Officer of the aforesaid thana and caused his death, almost instantaneously. The circumstances in which the appellant fired have been described is the F.I.R. marked Ext. 1/2 lodged at 23.00 hrs on 11.9.75 itself. It was alleged there in that in formant Sankar Lall Das A.S.I. attached to Coke-oven, P.S. and examined as P.W. 1 was talking standing in the space between the table of Sri Surja Kanta Paik. Choudhuri S.I. P.W. 2) and another table in the room of the Duty Officer. Mr. Paik Choudhury was sitting on the chair of the Duty Officer and in front of the table of the informant constable No. 366 Anil Kumar Chakravorty (P.W. 4) and Home Guard Sudhir Chatterjee were sitting on a bench and R.T. Constable No. 123 Asoke Mukherjee was sitting by the side of R.T. shed. When the Police Officers named above were sitting in the above posture in and around the room of the Duty Officer, driver Subol Singh, the victim came near the table of Surja Kanta Paik Choudhury and started talking with him. Suddenly Sentry constable Nimdhari Singh, the appellant, who was on duty fired one round from his rifle aiming as Subal Singh and he immediately fell down on the floor. Surja Kanta Paik Choudhury held his hand with his right hand and then pounced upon R.G.C. Asoke Mukherjee. Sushil Chatterjee, Anil Chatterjee, Asoke Mukherjee and the informant tried to get out of the Duty OfficerTs room in a stampede and they saw appellant stretching the barrel of his rifle again. The Officers attempting to go out shouted for fear of life. Home Guard Sushil Chatterjee (P.W. 14) however, managed to go out of the Duty Officers room and attempted to catch the rifle in the hands of the Sentry constable to be hit on his mouth by the barrel of the rifle by the Sentry constable. Despite that Sushil Chattejee caught hold of the rise and thereafter a scuffle ensued between him and the Sentry constable and in the meantime constable No. 1164 Ramchandra Orang (P.W. 9) and others caught hold of the appellant and snatched away the rifle from him. Sub-Inspector Makheser Hossain (P.W. 3) who was on duty in the room in front of the Duty Officers room at the time of the occurrence came out and with the help of all present the appellant could be apprehended. Injured Subodh Singh was taken to D.P.L. Hospital in a Jeep for treatment at about 9.45 P.M. and at about 10 P.M. the doctor attending him at the hospital pronounced him dead. The informant returned to the thana after making arrangement for treatment of S.r. Surja Kanta Paik Choudhury who was also injured. Thereafter the F.I.R. was lodged.

(3.) The appellant faced the Sessions trial on two fold charges namely, one under section 302 I.P.C. for intentionally causing the death of Subodh Singh and another under section 324 of the I.P.C. for voluntarily causing hurt to Surya Kanta Paik Choudhury. On behalf of the appellant the plea of his insanity at the time of occurrence was canvassed at the time of trial Prosecution examined in all 15 witnesses. We have already noted that informant was examined as P.W. 1, Surja Kanta Paik Choudhury who was himself injured was examined as P.W. 2, Makheser Hossain was examined as P.W. 3, Anil Chakraborty as P.W. 4. Narayan Mukherjee a Police constable as P.W. 5. Bhaskar Patra S.O of Police who reached the dead body of Subodh Singh to the Hospital at Asansol for postmortem as P.W. 6, Dr. P.C. Mukherjee. Who attended injured Sushil (P.W. 14) on the date of occurrence as P.W. 11, and Dr. Mondal who held postmortem over .the dead body of the deceased driver. Witnesses examined for the defence were D.W. 1 Dr. N.M. Roy, MO. attached to Asansol Special Jail and Dr. B.N. Chakra borty attached to Ranchi Manasik Aragyasala at Kanke, and D.W. 3 Md. Enaitullb, an employee attached to Ranchi Manasik Aragyasala at Kanke, who came to depose with regard to the detention of the accused there for sometime and produced some records. The learned trial Judge, however overruled the plea of insanity and convicted the appellant for the offences already stated.