ANUP MALLA ALIAS TUTON Vs. STATE OF TRIPURA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 7.4.05, passed by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge, Belonia, South Tripura. By the impugned judgment and order, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC and sentenced him to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and pay fine of Rs. 5,000/-, in default suffer imprisonment for another period of six months for his conviction under Section 302 IPC.

(2.) BEING aggrieved by the said conviction and sentence, the appellant has come up with the present appeal. The prosecution case, as revealed at the trial, in brief, may be stated as follows : On 9.12.03 Sri Bikram Das (hereinafter called, 'the deceased'), after playing cricket in Girls' School field at about 4.30 p.m. went behind the school field along with his friend Surajit Gope (PW 23) for washing his hands and feet. While the deceased was pumping the tubewell and PW 3 was washing his hands, Sri Anup Malla @ Tuton (hereinafter called the 'accused-appellant') gave a dao blow on the neck of the deceased, as a result of which the deceased sustained injury and fell down on the ground. On being called by PW 23, many people assembled in the place of occurrence and took the injured to the hospital in a auto rickshaw and the injured Bikram Das succumbed to his injuries. Sri Bappa Das, PW 1, i.e. the elder brother of the deceased lodged an FIR with the Police, which was registered as ST Case No. 44 of 2003 under Section 302 IPC. During the investigation, police conducted inquest, prepared the inquest report, recorded the statement of the witnesses, recovered and seized the dao on being produced by the accused-appellant, prepared a hand sketch map of the place of occurrence and sent the dead body for post mortem examination. At the close of the investigation, Police submitted chargesheet against the accused-appellant and Sri Sujit Biswas for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 109 IPC and forwarded them to the Court to stand trial. The offence being exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the learned Sessions Judge framed charge against the accused-appellant and Sri Sujit Biswas under Section 302 read with Section 109 IPC, to which the accused persons pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

(3.) MR. Biswas, learned counsel appearing for the appellant taking us through the evidence on record submitted that there is no sufficient convincing substantive evidence against the appellant and the learned trial Judge committed error by recording the conviction and sentence against the appellant.