GURUBARU PRAJA Vs. KING

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants have been convicted of murder and sentenced to transportation for life. The deceased Godra Jani is to oar tain extent a relation of the appellants having married their mother, the first informant, after she was divorced by their father, Dalima Praja, who, it is said, is still alive. It is Bug. gested by the prosecution that the appellants felt aggrieved that the deceased Godra Jani had kept their mother as a wife. Besides there were oertain other reasons, suoh as, Godra Jani having practised witchcraft and having thereby killed one of the brothers of the appellants which caused oertain animosity against him. On the date of occurrence (8th July 1946), the appellants, Godra Jani, P. Ws. 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12 and several other persons about 10 to 20 in number had gone to cremate the dead body of one Biting Kondhuni, appellants' father's elder sister The cremation was over some time in the morning. As customary, the entire party proceeded to a liquor shop for having a drink. The shop is in village Khamarpadar on the side of river Indravati The road to village Indravati iscros3ed by the said river. They had their drink and as it appears from the evidence adduced for the prosecution, they all became heavily drunk. After finishing their drinking, they came back home. On the way there ensued an altercation between the accused Turkul and Godra Jani, deceased, Turkul accused him of having kept his mother as a wife and having exercised witchcraft on his deceased brother and the child. Godra took this insinuation to heart and gave a slap to Turkul on which scuffle ensued. Godra somehow or other extracted himself from the grip of Turkul and fled into the nearby jungle. He was chased by the appellants It is said, inside the jungle he was done to death and his dead body was thrown into the river Indravati. This is the short story about the occurrence These facts, however, are not to be found in the first information report, lodged by the deceased's widow, Balmundi Prajani, though the report was made on the next day (9th July 19i6) at 2 p. m. at the police station which is 5 miles away from the place of occurrence. The facts, so far known to the first informant, were that her husband and the party went to have a drink at the liquor shop on the morning of 8th July 1946 and in the evening of that day all except her husband returned home. On her querry, she could not get any information as to the whereabouts of her husband on which she, in company with certain other persons, amongst whom this is worth mentioning were Gurubaru Praja, the first appellant, and Bite Gomtia, P W. 5 uterine brother of the deceased, Godra Jani. The only search that they made that evening was at the liquor shop where they were informed that all those who had come to drink had returned. Next day before lodging the report with the police, there was another search. In this seach, besides the persons already named, second appellant, Turkul Fraja also joined. In course of this search they came upon the place of occurrence, where they found some stones containing blood-like stains and some foot-prints leading to the river and nothing more. On this the first information report was lodged in which, as is expected on the facts of this case, nobody was named as accused but a suggestion was made as to the probable suspects in connection with the crime. The following is the passage which can be quoted in this connection : Dali Parja of village Chirkulguda was my husband, I ran away from him and I am living with Godra. I suspect that Dalimo Praja killed him with the help of his men. None except him killed him. Hence I lodge this report. It is to be noted that in her evidence in Court, she went back upon her statement that she had run away from her former husband and had been living with Godra and as such she had been divorced from Dalimo. In all probability, the statement in the first information report is the comet version to be accepted a3 otherwise there would be no animosity left in Dalimo and his sons against Godra.

(2.) A literate constable recorded the first information report in the absence of the officer-in-charge of the police station and the head constable as well It is he who visited the spot; that day and collected inhabitants of the place on the 10th morning. In course of that day. he discovered the dead body from the river being led to the place on account of certain informa-tion received from the appellants and in consequence of their pointing out a place where the dead body is said to have been thrown. Ha sent the dead body to the doctor for post mortem examination according to whose opinion the death must have been caused by very severe injuries inflicted on the head of the deceased, I shall deal with the report of the post mortem examination in more detail presently. He also found Biri Gountia, deceased's brother, to have certain injuries on the nose and sent him for medical examination. The Sub Inspector came to the spot towards evening of 10th and took over charge. In course of his investigation, he examined a number of witnesses including P. Ws. 2, 3 and i, who deposed to have seen the occurrence. He produced the accused persons before the Magistrate for recording their confessions.

(3.) ULTIMATELY the prisoners were tried in the Court of Sessions and have been convicted and sentenced as above.