RAM CHANDRA SAO Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THOUGH the appellant was tried by Additional Sessions Judge III, Biharsharif in Sessions Trial No. 151 of 1987 under section 364/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on accusation of kidnapping Santosh Kumar in furtherance of common intention of two unknown persons, he suffered conviction under section 364 IPC simpliciter, and was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a term of ten years.

(2.) AT the outset, I may briefly refer to the salient features of the prosecution case against the appellant centering round the incident in question. The accusation transpiring in the fardbeyan of the father of the victim and also narrations made by the two witnesses at trial are that at about 7 p. m. on 2nd May, 1985, while Usha Kumari, aged about eight years, daughter of Lakhan Sao (P.W. 8) had gone to the temple along with her minor brother aged about 2 years fa Prasad of God, she kept her brother seated on the stair of the temple and proceeded for taking Prasad. However, as ill luck would have it, when she returned, she found her brother missing. The accusation against the appellant was that he along with two persons was noticed sitting there and after her return, they were found absconding. The father of the victim came to know about the incident only when he returned to his house and in the morning, he went to the Police Station to take recourse to public authority and informed the Police Officer about the incident who had also drawn up a sanha. In the following morning, he came to know from Usha Kumari about the complicity of the appellant and again when he visited the Police Station, he was aksed by the Police Officer to make hectic searches for the appellant. It was only after return of the appellant to his house after 11/2 months that he again took recourse to public authority and rendered his fardbeyan before the Police, pursuant to which usual investigation commenced in course of which the Police Officer recorded the statement of the witnesses, visited the place of occurrence and on conclusion of investigation, laid charge sheet before the court. The trial commenced and the State examined altogether nine witnesses including the sister and father of the victim boy. The defence of the appellant was plain innocence and his false implication due to enmity with Lakhan Sao with regard to flow of water through a drain. The Trial Judge having analysed the evidences while negativing the plea of innocence of the appellant, recorded verdict of guilt against the appellant and sentenced him in the manner stated above.

(3.) SINCE it was a case of circumstantial evidence and no one claimed to have witnessed abduction of Santosh Kumar by the appellant to make him answerable for the charges, it was quite incumbent on the State to place on the record, the circumstantial evidence of credible nature which may exclude all hypothesis of the innocence of the accused. Though there was testimony of Usha Kumari about she having noticed the appellant sitting at the stair of the temple, where she got her brother seated, barring this piece of evidence, no evidence was placed on the record which could complete the chain of evidence suggesting guilt of the appellant, and notwithstanding such infirmity in the prosecution version, the following observation made by the trial Judge was manifestly against the weight of the mass of evidence :