RATAN DAS Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Criminal Appeal directed against the judgment and order dated 29.4.2001 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Sibsagar in sessions case No. 67 (S-S) of 1996 convicting the accused appellant under Section 302 IPC and sentencing him thereunder to imprisonment for life and also to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default to undergo simple imprisonment for 3 (three) months.

(2.) We have heard Mr. JM Choudhury, learned senior counsel for the accused-appellant and Mr. P. Bora, learned Public Prosecutor, Assam appearing on behalf the State Respondent. We have also perused the records of the case.

(3.) Mr. J M Choudhury, learned senior counsel for the accused appellant has led us minutely thorough the evidence on record, which we have also scrutinised. In this case, the prosecution examined 6 (six) witnesses in all. Let us start with the evidence of PW 2 Smti Mandudari Basfar, who is the mother of the deceased. She lodged the F.I.R. Ext. 1 in Sibsagar Police Station to the effect that on 1\6.989 at about 7 PM in the evening when her daughter, the deceased Nanki Basfar, came out from the quarter of Dr. Ananda Mohan Das (not examined) in Sibsagar Civil Hospital, the accused Ratan Das caught hold of her, dragged her behind the quarter, poured Kerosin Oil on her body and set her on fire and after uttering the words "If you survive, I shall cut.you to death" he left the place. It has been stated in the F I.R. that the patients in the hospital could see the occurrence and they came to rescue her daughter by pouring water on her (none of the patients was examined) and that the doctor in the Civil Hospital advised shifting of her daughter to Dibrugarh Medical College. In her evidence before the Court, PW 2 stated that after 5 days she was removed to Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh and after 25 day of her admission there, she succumbed to her injuries. Her evidence in the Court reveals that she was not an eye witness to the occurrence. She deposed, "the occurrence took place at about 7 p.m. while I was on duty at the hospital and at that time my grand daughter Baby, aged about 10/11 years came to me and reported to me - 'Nani Nani, Nanki Jal-Gya' (Grand mother, Nanki is burned down). Hearing it, I rushed to my residence and my daughter told me that she was burned by the accused after pouring kerosen Oil. The accused was in deep- love with my deceased daughter and so also the decesed with the accused. The parents of the accused did not like that the accused should have any affair with my deceased daughter." In cross-examination she stated that her granddaughter reported to her that the deceased had been set on fire by the boy who loved her daughter. She denied the defence suggestion that she did not tell the Investigating Officer that her grand daughter reported to her that the deceased had been set on fire by the boy, who loved her. She also denied the defence suggestion that she did not tell the investigating officer that her daughter (the deceased) committed suicide by burning herself due to frustration; that her daughter did not disclose of her that she had been burnt down by the boy, who loved her and that the deceased and the accused were in love. PW 1 Mangal Singh, a sweeper in the Civil Hospital, Sibsagar just stated that he saw the deceased in the hospital bed with bum injuries and that he did not know how the girl and sustained those bum-injuries. PW 3 Smti. Takali Goala stated that she did not know how the deceased died. PW 4 Shri Kunjalal Saikia wrote the F.I.R. as told by PW 2 and he had no personal knowledge about the occurrence. PW 5, Shri Tilak Chandra Deka, Sub-Inspector of Police, Sibsagar Police Station investigated the case and submitted the charge sheet against the accused appellant. He deposed that he recorded the statement of the deceased before her death but did not disclose the contents of her statement. He also stated that he sent a requisition for recording her dying declaration by a doctor of the hospital. In cross examination, PW 5 stated that PW 2 did not tell him that she was reported by her granddaughter that the boy, who loved her, set her on fire that the deceased disclosed, her that the boy who loved her, set her on fire and that the deceased ad the accused were in deep love. PW 6, Dr. M N Gogoi, Assistant Professor of Forensic Medicine in the Assam Medical College Hospital, Dibrugarh performed the post mortem examination on the dead body of the deceased on 10.7.89 and he opined that the death was due to septimicia (septimicia Means septic condition of the injuries) that resulted from the infected bums caused from flame burn. Burns were antemortem, epidermal in degree. 50% of the tody surface was involved in burn. Time in death 24 hours to 36 hours approximately.