BHANU DEI AND JOGINATH PRADHAN Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE two appeals arise out of the same judgment and order passed by Mr. K. P. Acharya, Sessions Judge, Puri holding the two appellants to be guilty of the charge of murder in furtherance of their common intention under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (for short 'the Code') and convicting each of them there under and sentencing them to undergo imprisonment for life while acquitting the appellant Bhanu of the charge of abetment of the commission of murder in view of her conviction under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Code and also acquitting the appellant Joginath and his father Bhagabat of the charge under Section 201 of the Code for causing disappearance of the legal evidence of the commission of murder by cremating the dead body in order to screen the offenders from legal punishment, as according to the learned Judge, there was no evidence in support of this charge. The learned Judge has accepted the case of the prosecution that at the instance of and on being told by the appellant Bhanu, his step -mother that if he (Joginath) would not kill his daughter (deceased), he would not be given food, the appellant Joginath dealt two strokes on the neck of his own daughter (deceased) resulting in her death while the other appellant Bhanu had caught hold of the deceased on the land of the appellants on July 10, 1980, where the appellant Joginath had gone for the purpose of cultivation followed by the appellant Bhanu and the deceased. The appellant Bhanu is the second wife of the acquitted co -accused Bhagabat, the father of the appellant Joginath and as alleged, she had been torturing Jayanti (to be referred to here) in after as 'the deceased'), the daughter of the appellant Joginath through his wife Gurei (P. W. 6), who had left her husband because of ill -treatment by the appellant. Bhanu and Bhagabat and remained with Sonia Nayak as his concubine.

(2.) TO bring home the charges, eight witnesses had been examined for the prosecution. The plea the appellants and the co -accused was one of denial and false implication in the case.

(3.) THIS takes us to the case against the appellant Joginath. While the learned counsel for the appellants has urged that the order of conviction recorded against this appellant is factually ill -founded and the retracted judicial confession ( Ex. 7 ) and the extrajudicial confession said to have been male by the appellant before P. Ws. 2 and 3, his two co -villagers, cannot sustain the charge in the absence of corroborative . evidence, the learned Additional Government Advocate has submitted that an order of conviction can be based on judicial and extrajudicial confessions and therefore, the order of conviction against this appellant may not be interfered with.