EKADAS PATRA AND 8 ORS. Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE nine Petitioners and several other persons were jointly tried for offences under Sections 457/380/411, Indian Penal Code and Section 414, Indian Penal Code, by a First Class Magistrate of Balasore who acquitted one of them and convicted the remaining (18) persons and sentenced them to undergo various terms of imprisonment and to pay various amounts of fine. An of them appealed to the Sessions Judge of Balasore but one of them died during the pendency of the appeal and the learned Sessions Judge set aside the conviction and sentence passed on three of the Appellants and acquitted them, and convicted the remaining 14 persons. Of these 14 persons only 9 have filed the present revision petition challenging the conviction and sentence.

(2.) IN village Moto, within Chandbali Police Station of Balasore District, there is a rich (sic) family consisting of its kartha, Niranjan Sahu and 45 other members. They were living in a two storeyed residential house. The family had extensive money and paddy lending business and used to advance loans on the security of gold and silver ornaments which were kept in a strong room of the house. At the time of advancing loans on such ornaments a serial number was given to each ornament and a slip bearing that number was tied to the same, and corresponding entries were also made in the account books. The affluent circumstances of the family and their keeping large amounts of gold and silver ornaments in their house attracted the cupidity of the people of the locality and during the night of 15th/16th January, 1961 a gang of burglars entered the house after pulling out some of the iron railings of the windows and decamped with a large amount of booty. One of the inmates of the house named Amulya Kumar Sahu (p.w. 1) went to Chandbali Police Station, lodged an F.I.R. (ext. 1) on 16 -1 -1961 at about 8 a.m. The Officer -in -Charge immediately visited the spot, found marks of violence on the window leaves and the iron railings and also found the trunks and boxes lying strewn about in a pell -mell condition. The account books of the Sahu family showing a list of various ornaments pledged with them were also stolen from the house. During the course of the investigation, the police arrested several suspects and on the statements made by them, they recovered money and ornaments and other stolen properties. A test identification parade was held by the Block Development Officer in respect of these stolen properties which belonged to the Sahu family (p.ws. 1 and 2): As regards the pledged ornaments that were recovered no test identification parade was held though the pledgers gave evidence in Court and claimed to have identified them as having been pledged by them with the Sahu family. Some adverse comment was made against the conduct of the Police Officers in keeping these stolen ornaments with them for nearly a month, while camping in village Moto during the course of their investigation, and it was suggested that during this long period many of the so -called pledgers must have been given ample opportunities of seeing these ornaments and consequently their subsequent identification in Court should not be believed. It would certainly have been much better if soon after the seizure of these articles the police had sent them to the Court. The question ultimately depends on whether the evidence given by the pledgers in Court, identifying those ornaments as their own, can be accepted or not. One significant fact to be noticed is that at the time of the recovery of many of these ornaments slips, containing the serial number given to them by the Sahu family at the time of taking pledge, were also found along with the ornaments. The account books were also traced out subsequently by the police and by comparing the numbers found on the slips attached to the ornaments with the numbers as entered in the account books (exts. 2 to 5) there was no difficulty in recognizing these articles as those pledged with the Sahu family by the pledgers. I shall deal with this matter in greater detail while discussing the case against each of the Petitioners.

(3.) MR . Misra however contended that the Investigating Police Officer alone has spoken about the alleged statements made by the accused persons prior to the recovery of these articles and that the search witnesses have not corroborated them in this respect. But as rightly pointed out by the trial Court, the search lists themselves contained entries to show that prior to the recovery the suspected persons made statements indicating the places where they were concealed, and that the actual recovery of the articles took place only thereafter. Thus the evidence of the Investigating Police Officer on this point which was fully corroborated by contemporaneous entries in the search list was acceptable as true.