SURENDRA PRASAD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) From perusal of the record it will appear that from the appellant Surendra Prasad, two mote accused Jeewan Kumar and Manoj Kumar were also charged along with under Section 376(2)(f) and (g) as well under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code ('the Code, in short) but in course of trial the other two accused appear to have absconded. hence judgment was delivered with regard to the sole appellant, aforesaid who was convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Code and sentenced to imprisonment for life, under Sections 376(2)(f) and (g) of the Code and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for ten years and, lastly, under Section 27 of the Arms Act. under which he was charged alone, sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years, all sentences to run concurrently.

(2.) This is a case in which, as per allegation a minor girl was raped while she had gone to collect cow dung cakes from a contiguous house where those were kept by the informant and was shot dead (after rape) by the appellant and others when she cried out, for which her mother Mala Devi got her fardbeyan recorded on 1/3/1995 at 4.45 p.m. As per the allegations, as unfolded in the Fardbeyan (Exhibit 7) recorded at Tekari Block where her husband had earlier worked as Nazir who had been transferred to Subdivision at Sherghati, her daughter Rani Kumari, about eleven years old on that day about 3.00 p.m. had gone to the (adjacent) house in which they used to keep cow-dung cakes in one of the rooms and in which house a temporary driver, Jeewan Kumar, one of the accused also lived. But after sometime she heard her loud cry and when she was running towards that house she heard a firing sound and when she reached there she saw the appellant with pistol and other two accused, out of whom Manoj Kumar was servant of the Circle Officer fleeing away. Inside in the room in which Jeewan Kumar lived, she found her daughter smeared with blood, and dead. On Hulla people came who were told about the incident she also claimed that the Circle Officer. Promod Kumar was adversely inclined towards her family with whose connivance her daughter was so killed.

(3.) The defence of the appellant, in course of the trial was that of innocence and false implication.