BABU PAL ASHOK SAHU ALIAS DRUBA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE three appellants stood charged under Section 395 of the Indian Penal Code (The Code for short) for having committed dacoity with Purna Chandra Pradhan, who also stood trial as a co -accused but was acquitted of the charge and four others, in the house of Sushil Kumar Sahu (P. W. 5) in village Salbania in the district of Dhenkanal during the night on January 9/10, 1981, being armed with dangerous instruments and having caused injuries to some of the inmates of the house and for having removed cash and a number of other articles. The appellants bad pleaded not guilty to the charge. While the prosecution had examined twelve witnesses to establish its case, the appellant Babul Pal had examined one witness in his defence to establish that the cash recovered from his possession belonged to him. Reliance had been placed by the prosecution on the evidence of two identifying witnesses, namely, P. Ws. 5 and 7. Besides, in the morning following the night of occurrence, while the three appellants had been moving together and were about to board the Baripada -Cuttack bus at Khunta, they were caught red -handed with the articles removed during the commission of dacoity, taken to the police station and arrested.

(2.) ON a consideration of the evidence, the learned Assistant Sessions Judge held that the charge had been brought home to the three appellants while it had not been established against the co -accused Purna Chandra Pradhan. Accordingly, each of the appellants was convicted under Section 395 of the Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of eight years.

(3.) ON perusal of the impugned judgment, I notice that on a careful consideration of the evidence of P. Ws. 5 and 7 who had identified properly the three appellants in the Court and at an earlier stage at the test identification parade which had been conducted by P. W. 5 not long after the occurrence but on February 3, 1981, the learned trial Judge has held that the evidence of these two witnesses was worthy of credence. I see no justifiable reason to take a different view and therefore, in affirming the judgment, it would not be necessary to catalogue the entire evidence in this regard and reiterate the reasons recorded by the learned trial Judge in support of his conclusion. In this connection, reference may be made to the decision reported in 1981 Cri. L. J . 1019 (Supreme court); AIR 1981 S. C. 1417 (State of Kamataka v. Hamareddy and Anr.,) As the evidence would clearly indicate, the commission of offence had taken a considerable time. The place had been lighted and P. Ws. 5 and 7 were in a position to carefully see the culprits and mark their features. The test identification parade had properly been conducted and there was no material to indicate that the identifying witnesses had seen or had been shown the suspects prior to the test identification proceedings. Merely because one of the appellants had a scar mark and there was no evidence that some of the persons who had been mixed up with the suspects had scat marks, the identification of the suspacts at the test identification parade could not reasonably be thrown out, I am at one with the trial Court that the three appellants had properly been identified by Ws. 5 and 7.