CHOTTU KUJUR Vs. THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This criminal appeal emanates from the judgment and order dated 23.07.2009 and 24.07.2009 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 1st Court, Siliguri, Darjeeling in connection with Sessions Case No. 21 (S) of 2005. By the said impugned judgment Additional Sessions Judge was pleased to convict the appellant and sentenced him to suffer imprisonment for life and also to pay fine.

(2.) Feeling aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the said finding of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, the appellant wants to assail the said judgment on following counts. According to the appellant, the fate of the case depends entirely on circumstantial evidence and the prosecution is under an obligation to establish the chain of every circumstance in its proper perspectives and there should not be any missing link in the entire chain of circumstances.

(3.) Before delving into merit of the appeal this Court wants to unfurl the prosecution case which is as under. Basis for setting the law into motion is the F.I.R. lodged by Parmila Kerketta, the wife of the victim, who had lodged the F.I.R. on 14.10.2004 disclosing that one of her relative Chottu Kujur @ Cathey came to their house on 2.10.2004 and requested her husband go to his house on the occasion of 'Puja' and ultimately he took away the victim with him. Since then her husband did not turn up. She has searched from pillar to post to find him out but could not. On 05.10.2014 her brother in law Enem Kerketta lodged one missing diary on 05.10.2004. However on 13.10.2004 she got an information that one dead body was found in Champta Jhora river side. After getting such information, she went to medical college and recognized the dead body of her husband by identifying the teeth. Thereafter, she found the accused in her house and asked him why he had taken her husband from her house. According to the defacto -complainant, this time the convict appellant has admitted that he had killed her husband by drowning in the river. Ventilating this story, the F.I.R. was lodged.