SHIYAKANT PANDEY @ AKALU PANDEY Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (Oral) - In an occurrence having taken place in the night intervening the 3rd and 4th of May, 1996 at village Gheora under police station Kochas in the district of Rohtas two lives were lost. One was the father of deceased Sanjay Pandey named Ram Niwas Pandey who was hacked by two criminals with Farsa. As regards Sanjay Pandey, he was allegedly shot by the same set of criminals.

(2.) The information in respect of the above incident was lodged by Lata Pandey (P.W.5) wife of Sanjay Pandey. She stated that while sleeping on the verandah of the house, she could pick up the stomping sound emanating from the roof top and she woke up. She went up by a bamboo ladder and saw that the criminals were hacking her father-in-law Ram Niwas Pandey. Her husband, also sleeping at the same roof-top with his parents, also woke up but before he could do anything, the mother-in-law of the informant and mother of deceased Sanjay Pandey had attempted to intervene when she was also given blows with the same weapon Farsa and she got injured. Deceased Sanjay Pandey arrived, in the mean time and he caught one of the criminals by his waist whereupon one of them pumped bullets into him to kill him. The informant also stated that she had slapped the criminals but the two jumped across on to the roof top of Mukhdeo Pandey to run away.

(3.) It appears stated in the very fardbeyan recorded at 4.45 A.M. on 04.05.1996 in respect of the occurrence taking place at 12.30 A.M. in the night intervening the 3rd and 4th May, 1996 that the police had searched the house of the present appellant Shiyakant Pandey @ Akalu Pandey and had recovered a Farsa from there. Thus, it could be safely concluded that the fardbeyan was recorded after the recovery of the Farsa. The Investigating Officer was not examined and, as such, it was very difficult for this Court to ascertain as to what was the time on which the search of the house of the present appellant was made by the police for allegedly recovering the Farsa. We exercised the powers of a court under Sec. 172 Crimial P.C. and we could find out from paragraph-9 of the case diary that the seizure memo was prepared at 6 A.M. giving rise to an inference that the search must have proceeded 6 A.M. and as just pointed out, it must have preceded the recording of the fardbeyan. Thus, what appears to us is that the time of recording the fardbeyan, i.e., 4.45 A.M. on 04.05.1996 is not true and the record, i.e., the fardbeyan is an ante-dated document.