MD MOKHTAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole appellant Md. Mokhtar has preferred this appeal against the judgment of conviction and sentence dated 13th December, 2000 passed by 3rd Additional Sessions Judge Darbhanga in Sessions Trial No. 149 of 1997 whereby the appellant has been convicted and sentenced to undergo R.I. for life for offence under Section 376 of the IPC and also to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- payable to the informant and in default to undergo simple imprisonment for one month. The appellant has further been convicted and sentenced to simple imprisonment for six months each for the offences under Sections 323 and 342 of the IPC. All the sentences have been ordered to run concurrently.

(2.) The prosecution case as disclosed by the fardbeyan of father of the victim, Md. Wazul (PW 7) is that the victim on 27.12.1996 at about 11 a.m. had gone to see a field of the informant having wheat crop and when she did not return till 3 p.m. then a search was being made and in course of the search the victim who is a minor daughter of the informant aged about 7 yeas was found lying in a field having Rahar plants with tied hands. Her clothes were disturbed and she was blooding from her private parts. She had also sustained injuries on her mouth and body. On query the victim disclosed the details of a person who had committed the offence of rape against her. The details mentioned in the fardbeyan are that the person was a Muslim and by profession a hazam whose wife was dead and who has constructed a house recently on west of Chamartoli Narainpur. The victim was immediately taken to Sakri Government Hospital on the date of occurrence itself and when the police arrived in the Hospital in the morning of 28.12.1996 the fardbeyan was recorded in the hospital and formal FIR was drawn on the same date in the police station at 4 p.m.

(3.) The prosecution has examined ten witnesses in all. PW 1, Aisa Khatoon, PW 2, Md. Nurul Hoda, PW 3, Md. Mustaquim and PW 4 Abdul Kalam are all residents of the same village who have claimed to have gone and seen the victim while she was lying at the place of occurrence in injured condition. They further claimed that the victim was bleeding from her private part and since her condition was serious she was taken to hospital for treatment. PW 5, Fatima is mother of the victim. She has claimed to have learnt about the occurrence as well as about the accused from her daughter, the victim and has supported the injuries on the person of the victim for which she was taken to hospital. Similar is the statement of informant, Md. Wazul (PW 7). Besides supporting the fardbeyan he has disclosed that the Investigating Officer prepared a seizure-list of blood-stained skirt of the victim as well as of some arhar Leaves. He further disclosed that the victim had to be shifted to Darbhanga Hospital for better treatment where she was treated for about a month. He also denied the suggestion of the defence that the accused was implicated because of enmity between the informant and one Yunus father-in-law of the accused.