AIBAN MUNDA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Court of Session has accepted the case of the prosecution that on July 18, 1981, after night fall, the appellant committed the murder of his paternal uncle Jujharu Munda (to be described hereinafter as 'the deceased') at the residence of the latter by intentionally causing his death by means of an axe (M.O. 1) and bas rejected the plea of denial set up by the appellant. The appellant bas been convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life.

(2.) THE appellant assails the order of conviction and sentence passed against him. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. R.K. Patra, the learned Additional Government Advocate.

(3.) NO one had seen the appellant dealing any axe blow on the neck of the deceased. The postmortem was held some days after the occurrence and the doctor (P.W. 2) was not able to say the cause of death. P.Ws. 1 and 5 had given halting and hesitating statements about their seeing injuries on the person of the deceased. The evidence of P.W. 4 the widow of the deceased, is that when the appellant and the deceased were together in the house, she left to ease herself and on return, found the deceased lying dead inside the house with the appel1ant having an axe in his hand and she left the place. She had not entered inside the house. It would not be safe and proper to accept her evidence that she had seen any injury on the person of the deceased. In such state of affairs the prosecution ought to have taken care to examine the Investigating Officer to place on record as to what actually had been found at the time of inquest. The contents of the inquest report are not substantive evidence and the Investigating Officer (P.W. 7) had not said in his evidence as to what bad been noticed by him at the time of inquest. No witness to the inquest had been examined. Thus the first essential to be established in a case of this nature as to whether the death of the deceased was homicidal in nature is not borne out by the evidence.