MAYACHAR SHA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment and order of conviction recorded by Mr. S.N. Das, Sessions Judge, Keonjhar, holding the appellant guilty of the charge of murder under S.302 of the Penal Code and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life. The appellant, it was alleged, owing to strained relationship with the deceased with whom he had litigation for years, attacked and assaulted him to death by means of a lathi (M.O.I.) while the deceased was returning from the court at Anandapur and was on his way back to his village on Feb. 24, 1981.

(2.) We have heard the learned counsel for both the sides. No one had seen the actual occurrence. The case rests on circumstance evidence. It is not disputed at the Bar that the deceased had died a homicidal death. The medical evidence would show that the injuries on the person of the deceased could be caused by M.O.I. The question is as to whether the appellant was the author of the crime. The evidence would show and it had been admitted by the appellant when his statement was recorded under S.313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that he had been on litigating terms with the deceased for some time past, but motive, however adequate, cannot, by itself, sustain a criminal charge and conversely, if the evidence against an accused is clear and clinching, failure on the part of the prosecution to establish any motive on the part of an accused to commit the crime is of no consequence.

(3.) Apart from the evidence with regard to the litigation between the parties, evidence has been led that both the appellant and the deceased had attended the court in connection with their litigation at Anandapur on the day of occurrence and had been returning back in a bus and on the way, the appellant got down at Basantia crossing and some time later, the deceased got down at Orali crossing. P.W. 8 has testified that after night-fall, he had seen the appellant moving on the fields holding a lathi. In the course of investigation, M.O.I. had been recovered on production by the appellant from an open field. The case of the prosecution is that M.O.I. was the weapon of attack. Although P.W. 8 has not stated that M.O.I. was the lathi which the appellant held and he has not identified any lathi in the court, the learned trial Judge has committed a serious error of record by mentioning in the judgment that P.W. 8 has testified that the appellant had M.O.I. with him.