DASARATHI CHHANCHAN AND ORS. Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 332 of 2010, namely Dasarathi Chhanchan and the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 354 of 2010, namely Shyama Mahananda faced trial in the Court of learned Addl. Sessions Judge, Deogarh in Sessions Trial No. 39 of 2005 for offences punishable under section 302/34 for committing murder of four children namely Miss 'S' (hereafter for short 'D -1'), Sagarika Dev (hereafter for short 'D -2'), Dolamani Dev (hereafter for short 'D -3') and Eliza Dev (hereafter for short 'D -4') in furtherance of common intention; section 376(f)/34 for committing rape on D -1 in furtherance of common intention and section 201/34 for causing disappearance of evidence in furtherance of common intention read with section 120 -B Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE prosecution case as per the First Information Report (Ext. 1) lodged by Santosh Kumar Sahu (P.W.1) before Officer -in -charge, Deogarh police station is that the four deceased children were prosecuting their studies in Dhobalipathar Primary School. On 1.7.2004 at about 4.00 p.m. after the school hours, the four deceased children were returning home but they were murdered on the way at Burgimunda. Since the deceased children did not return to their respective houses, their parents and guardians started searching for them and ultimately detected their dead bodies in a pond. Hearing about such unfortunate incident, villagers from the nearby villages congregated at the spot and found the dead bodies of four deceased children. The informant was sent to the police station by the villagers to intimate the matter and accordingly he lodged the FIR.

(3.) IN order to prove its case, the prosecution examined 52 witnesses.