RAMJEE PANDEY Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Sheo Kumar Prasad Sharma alias Prabhat Kumar Singh, appellant of Cr. App. No. 451/87, has been convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as 'the Code') and has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. The two appellants of Cr. App. No. 449/87 to writ, Ramjee Pandey and Rambrichh Singh, have been convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Code and have been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. It appears that six more persons were put on trial along with these three appellants, but they have been acquitted by the learned Additional Sessions Judge who tried the case.

(2.) The prosecution case, as disclosed in the fardbeyan of Janardhan Pd. Singh (P.W. 7), on the basis of which the present case was instituted, is that on 11-8-1981 in the morning his brother Sadhu Sharan Singh was returning home from Warsaliganj in a bus known as "Sheo Shambhu". This bus happened to reach near Badi More at about 10 a.m and was forced to stop there as the road was found cut. As soon as the bus stopped, these three appellants, who were armed with a rifle each, entered into the bus and started searching out Sadhu Saran Singh, who was sitting on the staff seat in the front portion of the bus. On seeing him, appellant Prabhat Kumar Singh asked the two other (two appellants) to pull him out and to kill him. Accordingly, those two appellants foreibly took out Sadhu Saran Singh, but he managed to flee away after rescuing himself. Thereafter, all the three appellants chased him and ultimately, Prabhat Kumar Singh succeeded in shooting him down from his rifle, as a result of which he fell down near Saidi Bagicha. It is said that the three appellants thereafter thrashed his face etc. with the butt end of their rifles. The cause of this occurrence, according to Janardhan Prasad Singh, is that appellant Prabhat Kumar Singh wanted to extend the main road towards his village Darbeshpur which was objected to by the deceased Sadhu Saran Singh.

(3.) Nobody went to the police to infrom about this incident until A. K. Singh (P.W.I2), officer-in-charge of Griyak police station, happened to reach there of his own at 2 p.m. At that hour he recorded the fardbeyan of Janardhan Prasad Singh in the Saidi Bagicha itself and himself took up investigation. Eventually after completing investigation the police submitted charge-sheet against these three appellants as well as six others, who were, in due course, put on trial with the result as stated above.