LADDU LAL SAHU Vs. DHARNIDHAR SAHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE passage of time has rendered somewhat academic the otherwise significant question formulated in the terms following by the referring Division Bench :

(2.) WHAT seems to be equally on the anvil is the correctness of the Division Bench view in Mahanth Harihar Das v. State of Bihar 1975 BBCJ 364, which indeed has necessitated this reference to the larger Bench.

(3.) HOWEVER , when the parents of the deceased returned from Patna, Dharnidhar Sahu, the father of the deceased, filed a complaint petition on 19th Aug. 1968, before the Sub -divisional Magistrate, Samastipur, who sent it to the police station for institution of a case. The police, however, did not even submit any first information report. It would appear that so far as the body of the deceased was concerned, only a piece of bone was said to have been later recovered from the water which was sent for post -mortem examination and was found to have contained no mark of injury. Ultimately the complaint case could not proceed any further. Finding the police wholly indifferent in taking any interest in the matter, the father of the victim then filed a petition before the Superintendent of Police, Lahariasarai, in which the death of the boy was alleged to be at the hands of accused persons named therein because one of the accused Chaturi Sahu had thought this boy responsible for the death by drowning of his grandson a year before. The result of this petition, however, was virtually foregone due to the cold attitude of the police and ultimately on the 6th of October, 1970, a final report was submitted that the case was true but without sufficient evidence. Thereafter the protest petition already filed by the complainant was later converted into a complaint petition in which after examining the complainant on solemn affirmation the matter remained inordinately delayed for a considerable time till 1974 for want of the case diary. By this time the new Cri. PC had come to be in force. The learned Magistrate had then directed the case to be sent for investigation under Section 202 of the Cri PC 1898 to the Executive Magistrate, Samastipur Municipality, who after inquiry also reported the case to be false.