BASANT KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A fortnight, preceding the fateful day of incident, appellants Ram Chandra Prasad and Jai Prakash Choudhary, allegedly picked up a quarrel with Kiran Devi, headmistress of primary School, Jhargawan, for not distributing wheat to them which was meant for children reading in the school. When deceased Shri Chand Prasad, husband of Kiran Devi, who was posted as Block Agriculture Officer at Rajpur Block, came to his house, he was informed by his wife about the incident, pursuant to which the deceased, who met Ram Chandra Prasad, Jai Prakash Choudhary, Ramesh Kumar, while returning after visiting vegetable field, took them to task for abusing his wife. Shortly thereafter, Ram Chandra Prasad, while abusing the deceased exhorted Jai Prakash Choudhary and Rakesh Kumar to kill him. After Kiran Devi and her son Bipin Kumar came out of her house, witnessed Ram Chandra Prasad and Jai Prakash Choudhary felling deceased on the ground pursuant to which, while Jai Prakash Choudhary caught hold of the deceased, Ram Chandra Prasad, dealt blows with iron rod on temporal region of head and also near eyes. Allegedly, Rakesh Kumar too dealt blows with wooden substance on head of the deceased, which was followed by blows given by Basant Kumar with wooden substance. Those who witnessed the incident of assault on the deceased were suggested to be Sanjay Kumar and Vijay Kumar who carried the injured to the clinic of Dr. Surendra Singh at Islampur where he was declared dead, and with these accusations fardbeyan of Kiran Devi (PW 8) was recorded at the clinic of Dr. Surendra Singh at Islampur at about 20.15 hours on 10th August, 1996, by Shri Shyam Nandan Sah, Officer Incharge of Islampur Police Station, Pursuant to which investigation followed.

(2.) DURING investigation, the Officer Incharge of Police Station having visited place of occurrence, recorded statement of witnesses, seized blood stained earth and wearing apparel of the deceased from the place of occurrence, held autopsy over the dead body of the deceased, sent the dead body to mortuary for post mortem examination and eventually made over charge of investigation of the case to his successor who laid charge -sheet before the Court.

(3.) EXPLICIT defence of the appellant before the Court below and this Court too, apart from simpliciter denial of allegations attributed to them, was also that since Kiran Devi had questionable relation with Sitaram Prasad, a school teacher, she got killing of her husband executed with aid of her paramour. The trial Court, however, on evaluation of probative value of the testimony of witnesses, while rejecting plea of innocence of the appellants, and placing implicit reliance on the witnesses, who claimed to be either ocular to the incident or claimed to have seen the dead body of the deceased on the place of occurrence with bleeding wounds on his person, recorded verdict of guilt under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), against Ram Chandra Prasad, Rakesh Kumar and Basant Kumar. The trial Court found Jai Prakash Choudhary and Munna Kumar too guilty under Section 302/114, IPC and sentenced all these appellants convicting them on these different counts, to undergo imprisonment for life.