SHEO BACHAN MAHTO Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants have been convicted under sections 302/34 as also under section 364 of the Indian Penal Code by the judgment and orders of the Learned Fourth Additional Sessions Judge. Rohtas at Sasaram in Sessions Trial No. 150-82 but they have preferred 80 far two criminal appeals. Since the two appeals, however, arise from a common judgment they have been heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) It started on 20-1-1981, according to the prosecution, when the appellants came to the house of Ambika Prasad (the victim) and on the pretext of going to Dehri-on-sone they took him away in the after noon and while leaving his house Ambika told his brother that he would be returning from Dehri-on-sone in the evening. He, however, did not return until the following day. P.W. 15, the informant who is the brother of Ambika along with his relations, namely Ramta Prasad (P.W. 8) and Bajrangi started searching Ambika Prasad and made inquiries from the appellants who it is said, informed that Ambika had already left for his home when they last saw him. Ambika however, could not be found out until on 25-11-81, when P.W. 15 learnt that a dead body was lying in the bed of Durgawati River. Accompanied by P.W. 15 went to the said place and found a dead body without its head lying in the bed of the river. They could identify the dead body as that of Ambika and accordingly lodged report with the police on 26-11-81. On 30-11-81 the appellants surrendered in Court and remanded to police custody for interrogation. P.W. 12 the investigating officer found in the confessional statement of the appellant Sheo Bachan that after the murder the head had been separated from the trunk and concealed in a pump set in a field near the river Durgawati. At the confession of appellant Sheo Bachan the head was recovered.

(3.) The Learned Sessions Judge has set out almost in full the confessional statement of appellant Sheo Bachan in which he disclosed how the victim was enticed away and kept with the accused persons and how with the help of other accused the appellants got him killed. His head was separated from the trunk, the trunk thrown in the river and the head concealed in the pump set. Other accused persons were also put on trial but they have been acquitted by the learned Sessions Judge.