RAMESH CHANDRA PANDA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE judgment dated 23. 12. 1988 passed by the learned First Addl. Sessions Judge, Ganjam-Berhampur convicting the appellants of the charge under Section 457 I. P. C. and sentencing them to undergo R. I. for five years and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/-each and in default to undergo R. I. for three months more in S. T. No. 16 of 1988 is assailed in all these three Criminal Appeals.

(2.) OUT of five appellants in Criminal Appeal no. 11 of 1989, two being appellant No. 2-Bhagirathi jena and appellant No. 5-Bipin Kumar Mohanty having died in the meanwhile, the appeal is confined to appellant Nos. 1, 3 and 4, being Suresh Chandra jena, Sarat Kumar Dhal @ Ranjeet and Durga Madhav Panda respectively. Criminal Appeal No. 48 of 1990 has been filed by one Ramesh Chandra Panda who was the informant in the case, being aggrieved by the direction of the learned First addl. Sessions Judge, Ganjam-Berhampur as to forfeiture of the seized gold (M. O. III and IV) to the State. According to the said appellant the gold ornaments belonged to the deceased and the plea of the defence that the same belonged to the mother of the accused appellant having been negatived the court below ought to have directed return of the said gold ornaments to the accused appellant instead of directing to forfeit the same. As the facts and points of law involved in all these three appeals are same the same are heard together with consent of learned counsel for the parties.

(3.) BEREFT of unnecessary details the prosecution case in short was that Smt. Annapurna Panda, after death of her husband remained alone in her house. She was an orthodox and conservative lady. She was always maintaining distance from others and was commonly called as "chuin Chuin budhi". She was last seen on 13. 11. 1987 and thereafter none of her neighbours saw her for about three to four days. They found that the house was locked from inside. On 18. 11. 1987 suspecting some foul play the neighbours informed the police and her brother. On being informed, in presence of police they forced open the house and found the old lady lying dead. Thereafter telegrams were sent to her children who came and found that some valuable materials like "khasamali" weighing about 9 tolas were missing from the neck of the deceased and so also some money kept in a steel almirah along with other gold and silver ornaments. Her son P. W. I lodged an F. I. R. (Ext. 1) and on the basis of the same criminal action was set in motion. It appears that the brother of deceased Brajamohan Panigrahi also lodged another F. I. R. which was marked as Ext. 12. In course of investigation, it was alleged that some of the appellants had made an extra-judicial confession before P. Ws. 8 and 9 and on suspicion police arrested them and it was alleged that they had also confessed their guilt before police. On the basis of the materials available and seizure of stolen articles from the Goldsmith, charge-sheet was filed under Section 396, I. P. C. against five accused persons. The plea of the accused persons was complete denial.