STATE Vs. BASU TANTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The third Additional Sessions Judge of Manbhum-Singhbhum, camp Chaibassa, has made this reference under Section 374, Code of Criminal Procedure, for confirmation of the sentence of death passed by him on Basu Tanti alias Basdeohari Tanti on his conviction under Section 302, Indian Penal Code. The accused was also found guilty of the offence under Section 328, Indian Penal Code, but no separate sentence was passed in respect of that charge. The accused has preferred two appeals, one from jail and the other is a regular appeal. The two appeals and the reference have been heard together and are being disposed of by this judgment.

(2.) The deceased was one Hazari Tanti, who was working as a Mali at the Railway Institute at Chakradharpur. On the 18th of May, 1954, he came back to his house at about 7 p.m. and poured out some wine into a cup from a bottle. He drank a little of the wine and complained that it tasted bitter, and threw away the cup. Immediately after taking the wine, Hazari Tanti began to vomit and also showed symptoms of shivering and pain in his body. He uttered that the appellant Basu Tanti committed treachery towards him inasmuch as he gave him the bottle of wine from which he poured a small quantity into the cup. His wife Mt. Mouli Tantin (P. W. 2) and his daughter Udia Tantin were presented there. His son Alakh Tanti, a student, who was in the playground near the quarters of the deceased, also came to his house on hearing the alarm raised by the inmates of the house. Gohan Tanti (P. W. 11) happened to come there soon after. Gohan Tanti happened to be the son-in-law of the deceased Hazari Tanti. Gohan's advice was that Hazari should be taken to Bara Babu (Raghunath Sanyal), who is P. W. 1 in the case. He was accordingly taken there and Raghunath Sanyal (P. W. 1) advised the party to take Hazari Tanti to the hospital at Chakradharpur. He was treated there by Dr. Gopi Nath Prasad (P. W. 7), who suspected it to be a case of poisoning and immediately gave him stomach wash. Hazari Tanti, however, did not survive the action of the poison for long and died soon after at about 9-15 p.m.

(3.) The further case for the prosecution was that the appellant Basu Tanti had been to the house of, Hazari at 11 a.m. that day to call him to do a little jhar-phung as the appellant had some physical ailment which might be cured as a result of the jhar-phunk of the deceased person. Hazari Tanti, however, refused to comply. The appellant, however, repeated his visit to the house of the deceased in the evening at about 6 p.m. and the deceased was persuaded somehow to accompany the appellant to his house. When Hazari Tanti came back he had with him the bottle of wine and he said, after he sipped a little of it from the cup into which he poured a part of the contents of the bottle, that it was given to him by the appellant. The motive suggested by the prosecution for the commission of the offence by the appellant was that he had happened to be a friend of Deohari Tanti to whom Udia (P. W. 3), one of the two daughters of the'deceased Hazari Tanti was married. Udia was married first to Babuji Tanti and after his death she was married again to Deohari Tanti. Deohari, however, did not take kindly to her and actually, ill-treated her so much that she had to come back to her father's house. Hazari Tanti was annoyed with Deohari on this account. It was alleged that the appellant was an intimate friend of Deohari and it was probably to satisfy the grudge his friend Deohari bore against his father-in-law, the deceased Hazari Tanti, that the appellant volunteered to commit the murder on behalf" of his friend.