SHANKAR SAH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Appellants have been convicted under Section 306 Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years by judgment and order of conviction dated 22nd April, 2000, & 26th April, 2000, respectively passed by the 2nd Additional Sessions Judge, Banka, in Sessions Case No.370 of 1995.

(2.) THE case of the Informant is that his daughter was married with Appellant Sudarshan Sah eight yeas ago but after sometime she was subjected to cruelty by her in -laws. A Panchayati was also held in this regard. On 17.06.1994, the Appellants came to the house of the Informant to enquire about his wife. When he went to her village, he was told that on 15.06.1994, his daughter had been brutally assaulted by the present Appellants and her husband for the alleged theft of six kg. of rice from the house. It is thereafter that her dead body was recovered by the Jasidih police besides the railway track. The dead body was identified by photograph that was shown to them by the police official and then the present case was instituted and the Appellants were put on trial under Sections 302, 201, 120 -B Indian Penal Code, but acquitted of the Charges and convicted as mentioned above after alteration of the Charges.

(3.) PW 1, Doman Paswan, stated that the occurrence had taken place about seven years ago. When he reached the shop of Singho Sah, he found that the present Appellants and Sudarshan Sah were assaulting the deceased on the pretext that she had stolen rice from the house and sold it there. She was so brutally assaulted that she could not stand on her own. Thereafter, when the accused were chided, the deceased was bodily lifted and taken to their house. The accused persons had assaulted the deceased for which a Panchayati was also held in which they were told to maintain restraint. Two days after the aforesaid occurrence, the father of the deceased had come to find out about her whereabouts and then it was found that a dead body had been removed besides the railway line which was identified to be that of the deceased through photographs. His attention was drawn to his earlier statement under Section 161 Cr. P. C. that he had not stated that on 15.06.1994 in the morning two accused persons were assaulting the deceased and further that he had not stated that the deceased had stolen rice and sold it in his shop or that a person like her should be killed.