BISIPATI PADHAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has been convicted under Section 302 I. P. C. and sentenced to death. A reference has been made under Section 374 Cr. P. C. to the High Court for confirmation of the sentence of death.

(2.) THE prosecution case may be stated in short. One Badal (dead) had four sons krushna (dead), Kalisingi (P. W. 2), Suma (dead) and Arjun (the deceased ). Out of them, only Krushna had 2 sons Tunde (P. W. 1) and Bisipati (the accused ). Others had no issues. The four sons of Badal were having joint cultivation of their lands. They had however separate messings. On 28-2-68 at about 4 P. M. the deceased arjun, P. W. 2 and the accused were sitting in the Bari of the accused. The deceased asked the accused as to why he was loitering with the gun and was not doing work in the fields. The accused went inside his house, brought out his gun (M. O. I.) and shot the deceased. The deceased instantaneously fell down dead. The accused threw away the gun in the Bari and entered into his house. P. W. 1 had gone out to the jungle to bring fuel. P. W. 2 went out and called P. W. 1. Both p. Ws. 1 and 2 tied the accused with a rope to a pole on the verandah of the accused. The dead body was carried to the house of the accused. P. Ws. 4 and 5, the ward members of the village Panchayat, were informed. Before them the accused made an extra-judicial confession that he killed the deceased as the latter asked him as to why he was not doing work in the fields. F. I. R. was lodged on that very day at about 8 P. M. before a head-constable. The formal F. I. R. (Ext. 2)was drawn up at 3 P. M. next day. The defence of the accused before the sessions court was that he came out of his house with the gun (M. O. I. ). He stumbled in his own Bari where the deceased and P. W. 2 were sitting. The gun accidentally went off and the deceased was killed. On an analysis of the materials on record, the learned Sessions Judge held that the death of the deceased was homicidal and that the accused killed the deceased.

(3.) THE finding that the death was homicidal is not assailed before us. In fact it is the very defence case that as a result of an accident the deceased died of the shot from the gun (M. O. I. ).