MAHADEO NATH KHETRI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The four appellants, Mahadeo, Sahdeo who are brothers and Chhatu and Anand who are unoles of the former two all live in the same house. Chamni, a widowed sister of Mahadeo and Sahdeo, was also living in the same house with them.

(2.) It was the prosecution case that Maheshwar Nath was carrying on an intrigue with this Chamni which the four appellants resented; that on 14 February 1940, at night Maheshwar had entered the house of the accused and was caught in Chamni's room by the appellants who inflicted numerous injuries on him and threw his body into a well in the village. They were charged along with Chamni and another woman of the house, Sucha, with offences of murder, Section 302/84, Indian Penal Code, and causing disappearance of evidence of an offence, Section 201/84, Indian Penal Code. The two women were acquitted, but the lour appellants have been convicted of both offences and sentenced on the former charge to transportation for life and under the latter to rigorous imprisonment for three years each, the sentences being directed to run concurrently.

(3.) The facts have been stated with clearness and precision in the judgment of the learned Judicial Commissioner. There is no eyewitness of the murder, and the case rests on circumstantial evidence which it is contended for the appellants does not establish the case against the accused. Moreover, appellant 2 Sahdeo has pleaded alibi. The evidence is quite clear that the relations between Maheshwar and the men of the accused's household were unfriendly. In June 1938, Maheshwar had occasion to report at the police station an assault on himself by Mahadeo in which Maheshwar's umbrella was broken and Mahadeo threatened Maheshwar. Witness Deopal, father of the deceased has spoken as to the intrigue between Maheshwar and Chamni and as to quarrels arising at different times in the last two years between Maheshwar and Mahadeo, Sahdeo and Anand respectively. This evidence is not seriously challenged.