UMA BEWA Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appeal is directed against the conviction of the Appellant under Sections 302 and 201, Indian Penal Code sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life for offence under Section 302, Indian Penal Code and R.I. for five years for offence under Section 201, Indian Penal Code, both the sentences to run concurrently.

(2.) PROSECUTION case is that on 13 -7 -1976 in the morning in village Goudasahi under Tirtol P.S. the Appellant quarreled with P.W. 4 the mother of the deceased, suspecting that the deceased who was a child of about six years had committed theft of rice from her house and threatened to take revenge. In the evening the child was untraced and subsequently her deadbody was recovered from the pond of the Appellant and there were marks of injuries on the deadbody. It is alleged that the Appellant made extra judicial confession that she had killed the deceased. After investigation charge -sheet was submitted by police.

(3.) PROSECUTION relies on the evidence of P.Ws. 1, 4, 5 and 7 about quarrel in the morning between the Appellant on the one hand and the mother of the deceased (P.W. 4) on the other, when the Appellant threatened to kill the deceased. From the evidence of P.W. 4 the deceased, it transpires that when the Appellant suspected that the daughters of P.W. 4 had committed theft of paddy, both the daughters touched the garland of the deity and said that they had not committed such theft. It may be mentioned here that there is no evidence for the prosecution as to which daughter of P.W. 4 was suspected by the Appellant to have committed the theft of paddy, in as much as P.W. 4 had two daughters, namely, the deceased and P.W. 5. It may be a fact that there was a quarrel between the Appellant and P.W. 4.