OLANKAR SAURA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from an order passed by the Sessions Judge, Keonjhar, convicting the appellant under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing him to imprisonment for Me.

(2.) THE charge against the appellant was that on 27-10-1955 at Gurasahi he committed murder by intentionally causing the death of one Dhangada. Bhauyan and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian penal Code, He was further charged for causing certain evidence of the said offence to disappear, to wit, throwing the dead body of the deceased in river mahendra Tanaya, with the intention of screening himself from punishment and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 201 of the Indian Penal code. The appellant was also charged for having committed theft of one gold ear-ring and one gold nose-ring (M. Os. II and III) by taking them out of the possession of the deceased and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 379 of the Indian Penal Code.

(3.) THE facts, so far as relevant for the present purpose, shortly stated, are as follows: The deceased Dhangada Saura used to be looked upon as the head of the village consisting of about seven or eight houses. The villagers used to perform bagha Puja by sacrificing a buffalo. They used to raise subscription to pay for the price of the buffalo. The deceased was in charge of raising the subscription. When he demanded the subscription from the father of the appellant he refused to pay, with the result that there was an altercation between the deceased and the father of the appellant when the deceased threatened to drive away the father of the appellant from the village and take away his lands and house. This is the genesis of the cause of the quarrel between the deceased and the appellant which ultimately ended with the murder of the deceased with which the appellant was charged.