KING Vs. ARAKHIT ALIAS JADA MOHARANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference under Section 341, Criminal P. C. by the Magistrate, First Class, Aska, in a preliminary enquiry that was conducted by him against one Arakhit alias Jada Moharana, a deaf and dumb person, for an alleged offence under Section 302, I. P. C. The Magistrate, while holding the enquiry, was satisfied that the accused Arakhit was incapable of making a defence as he was unable to understand the nature of the proceedings pending against him. The Magistrate examined the maternal aunt of the accused, one Bayani Maharanani, the elder sister of the accused Sunna Maharanani; & a neighbour Natabar Panda who lives 60 to 60 cubits away from the house of the accused. All these witnesses say that the accused is deaf and dumb since his birth, that he cannot understand anything even when it is expressed by gestures and that he is capable of understanding only a very few things by gestures such as directions to come, go, sit, stand and eat, but nothing else. The Magistrate put a number of questions by means of gestures and also directed the maternal aunt and the sister of the accused to make certain gestures in order to convey certain ideas but the accused failed to understand them and made some unintelligible sounds which satisfied the Magistrate that the accused was incapable of understanding anything. He has, therefore, made this reference under Section 341, Criminal P. C. to this Court as he was also satisfied, on the evidence itself in the case, that the accused did commit the murder of his father Joyadeva Moharana as alleged by the prosecution.

(2.) The prosecution case against him is that on the morning of the 27th December 1948 the deceased Joyadeba Moharana was sitting on the village mandap a few yards away from the house of the accused. The accused went with a knife to his father and made a few gestures to show that he was very hungry and that he was going to cut and bring fuel. His father then directed him not to get fuel but to go out and beg, and bring some food. The accused then pointed out his swollen knee joints and pleaded inability to go out and beg for food. What happened subsequently is not borne out by any direct evidence but from the evidence of P. W. 1 (Suna Maharanani) it appears that very soon after this exchange of gestures the father was killed and was lying dead on the mandap, and that the accused had disappeared. (After narrating prosecution evidence the judgment proceeds:) This is all the evidence regarding the occurrence, adduced by the Prosecution.

(3.) It is clear that the accused had been without food for three days preceding the date of occurrence and that on the day of occurrence he was asked by his father to go out and beg for alms. The accused pleaded inability to walk on account of his swollen knee-joints and wanted to go out for fuel. Immediately after this P. W. 1 raised a cry that her father had been killed. It is also in evidence that the father prodded the accused on his stomach with a stick. There is no direct evidence of the commission of the offence but the evidence of P. Ws. 1, 2 and 6 together with the circumstantial evidence of the recovery of the knife and the blood-stained cloth and banian, belonging to the accused are sufficient to warrant the inference that the accused himself committed the murder of his father.