DATU AND ORS. Vs. STATE OF ODISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Criminal Appeal is in challenge of the order of conviction of the Appellants for commission of the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the I.P.C. sentencing each of the Appellants to imprisonment for life with fine of Rs. 2,000/ -, in default, to undergo R.I. for six months vide judgment dated 19.04.2012 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court, Rourkela, Camp at Bonai in Sessions Trial Case No. 199/95 of 2009.

(2.) THE prosecution case, in brief, is that the Appellants and the deceased are agnates. But they had no cordial relation. On 04.07.2009 there was a quarrel between the two sides over partition of their ancestral property. The Appellants had borne grudge. On 11/12.07.2009 night while the deceased was sleeping on the verandah of his house the Appellants came and slit the deceased's neck as a result of which he died. In the following morning the deceased's wife told about this fact before the villagers. Thereafter, F.I.R. was lodged in Mohulpada P.S. which was registered as P.S. Case No. 11 of 2009. On the said F.I.R. G.R. Case No. 372 of 2009 was registered in the court of S.D.J.M., Bonaigarh.

(3.) RELYING on the testimony of the sole eye witness, the learned trial court has held the prosecution case to have been proved to the hilt. Learned counsel for the Appellants submits that P.W. 2, who claims to have seen the Appellants kill her husband in the dead hour of the night is totally unworthy of credence whose testimony has been totally demolished in course of cross -examination. It is argued that the learned trial court has accepted her testimony without making any effort to make a critical analysis of her testimony. Learned counsel for the State, on the other hand, has taken efforts to justify the findings of the learned trial court.