TAPAS SHIL Vs. STATE OF TRIPURA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This criminal appeal is directed against the judgment dated 10-9- 1996 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, North Tripura, Kamalpur in S.T. 3(NT/KMP)/1996 convicting the appellant herein under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (for short 'IPC') and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life.

(2.) We have heard Mr. A.C. Bhowmik and Mr. D. C. Roy, learned counsel for the ap - pellant and Mr. D. Sarkar, learned Public Prosecutor with Mr. R. C. Debnath, learned counsel for the State-respondent.

(3.) The prosecution version leading to the criminal proceeding may be noticed in brief: The deceased Subimal Sarkar was a ten - ant in the house of appellant Tapas Shil and his brother in the village Hararkhala under Kamalpur police station. Subimal was serving as Field Assistant in the Department of Agriculture and at the relevant time he was posted at Hararkhala. On 29-5-1995 Subimal invited his friends Kajal Chandra Das (P.W. 3), Bijoy Das-l(P.W. 8), Bijoy-2 (P.W. 11), Ranjit Deb (P.W. 10) and Anath Adhikari (not examined) for dinner in his rented house. All the friends spent the night in his house enjoying food and film by means of a VCP. The appellant also once came to the house of the deceased and took few pieces of meat. Very early in the following morning (30-5-1995) when the friends were leaving, the appellant was found near the house of the deceased. The gruesome murder took place at about 10 a.m. when sud - denly the appellant with an 'axe' in his hand stormed into the house of the deceased and by a surprise onslaught on him caused severe injuries brought about his instanta - neous death. Thus, was Subimal suddenly murdered in his own rented house by his own landlord. The appellant then concealed the axe in his 'ekchala hut' and proceeded towards the police station. There, in presence of Sudhangshu Mitra (P.W. 13) who was Sub-Inspector of Police and In-charge of the Kamalpur police station on that day and Newlafru Mog Choudhury (P.W. 14), SubInspector of Police of the same police station, the appellant made confession that he had committed the murder of Subimal Sarkar. He also told them he would be able to show the axe, by which the murder was committed, from the place where it had been concealed. The statement of the accused was immediately recorded in Kamalpur P.S. G.D. Entry No. 1246, dated 30-5-1995 by P.W. 13. P.W. 14 was assigned the task of making preliminary enquiry. Accordingly, the statement of the appellant was recorded again separately with his signature on the same, which is Ext. 11. Thereafter, P.W. 14 with a police constable, Rabindra Debbarma (P.W. 12) and a Chowkidar, Prafullya Kumar Dey (P.W. 7) went to the place of occurence and found the deadbody of Subimal lying in his room with injuries and in pool of blood. All necessary steps for investigation of the offence were taken by P.W. 14, which included taking of photograph of the dead body, preparing hand-sketch map and causing seizure of blood-stained pillow cover and bed-sheet. A large number of people of the village gathered at the spot, in whose presence the convict appellant stated again that he had hidden the weapon in his ekchala hut. Accordingly, in presence of all the witnesses, he recovered the said weapon with blood-stains. The dead body was sent for postmortem after the inquest report was prepared. The appellant was arrested and after returning to the police station the police officer formally lodged an FIR, which was registered under Section 302 of IPC. The formal investigation that had followed ended into a charge-sheet after recording evidence of witnesses and collecting materials which made out a strong prima facie case against the appellant. A full dressed trial was afoot in the Court of Session, which finally found the appellant guilty of the offence of murder. He was, accordingly, convicted and sentenced as notice above.