CHUNIA KISAN Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgment dated 14th September, 1987 -passed by learned Sessions Judge, Sundargarh in S.T. No.98/1987 convicting the appellant under Sections 201, 202 and 176 of the I.P.C. and sentencing him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years, for six months and for one months respectively with direction to run the sentences under Sections 202 and 176 I.P.C. concurrently and the sentence under Section 201 I.P.C. consecutively is assailed in this Criminal Appeal.

(2.) On the allegation that the appellant had committed murder of his wife-Gura on 28.1.1986 night he faced trial for commission of offence under Section 302 of the I.P.C. It was also alleged that after committing the offence he caused disappearance of the evidence of murder by throwing the dead body of his wife into a water ditch after packing the same in a gunny bag and subsequently burning the dead body with the intention of screening himself from legal punishment for murder. Thus he was also charged for commission of offence under Section 201 of the I.P.C.

(3.) The prosecution case in brief is that on 28.11.1986 night, the accused-appellant quarreled with his wife and in a heat of temper assaulted on her back by means of a knife thereby causing her death at the very spot of assault. It was further alleged that when the tussle between the accused and the deceased arose, their daughters, P.Ws. 3 and 4, who were sleeping with their another sister, Sabitri in an adjoining room woke up. P.W.4 went inside the room, where her parents were quarreling and saw her father, accused-appellant, assaulting her mother. On seeing her, he drove her out of the room/kitchen threatening her with the knife. It was further alleged that after some time all the three sisters heard groaning sound of their mother for some time and thereafter the accused-appellant came out from his room and told his daughters that he had killed their mother by cutting her throat with a knife and threatened them not to disclose the incident to anybody. He also asked his daughters to go into the room and clean the blood stained floor and walls of the room and plaster the same with cow dung. It was alleged hat when his daughters went inside the room they did not find their mother, but then found a closed gunny bag packed with something and oozing out of that. The accused-appellant with the help of P.W.4 carried that gunny bag to a water ditch and threw the same into the water and pressed a stone over the bag. Two days after Meta Kishan, Bala Kishan and Sukha Kishan finding the said bag inside the water, informed the Ward Member, P.W.5, and Surendra Pradhan about the said fact. All of them came to the water ditch, brought out the gunny bag with the help of Bithal Kishan and Biran Kishan in presence of several villagers including the accused-appellant. The bag was opened and the dead body of the deceased, Gura, was identified. On being asked the accused-appellant denied having any knowledge about the death of Gura. On the suggestion of the villagers the accused-appellant cremated the dead body of his wife, collecting wood from the villagers for the purpose of burning the dead body. After extinguishments of the fire, the bones which left unburnt were buried by him in a pit. The accused-appellant, it is alleged, while admitting his guilt in relation to commission of murder of his wife before the villagers, paid a sum of Rs.500/- for saving him from prosecution and punishment. The amount was kept with the Ward Member, P.W.5, P.W.2, Rajendra Bada, on receipt of information about the death of his sister, Gura, came to the house of the accused-appellant. On being asked the accused-appellant told P.W.2 that his sister had gone somewhere and had not returned back and that while taking bath in the pond he came across the bag, called the villagers, opened the gunny bag in their presence and found the dead body of his wife inside the bag. It was alleged that the accused-appellant also told P.W.2, that on the suggestion of the villagers, the dead body had been cremated. Suspecting the accused-appellant to have committed the murder of the deceased, P.W.2 lodged an F.I.R., Ext.2, at Baragaon Police Station on 12.12.1986 at 3.00 P.M. After investigation charge sheet was submitted and the appellant faced trial.