EMPEROR Vs. NANUA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the Provincial Government against the acquittal of Nanua who was tried for the murder of Mt. Shyama said to have been committed on 12th October 1939 between Maupur and Bhaupur villages, District Aiigarh. Mt. Shyama lived in Maupur village which is less than half a mile from Bhaupur where the appellant resides, and during the day on 12 October she had gone to Bhaupur wearing some silver and gold ornaments and carrying a scale and weights and similar things as she used to do a little business in the neighbourhood of Maupur. She did not return after dark, and P.W. Raghubir, her nephew, with whom she lived, became anxious and went to look for her. At about 10-30 P. M., her corpse was found in a well which lay between Maupur and Bhaupur. The medical evidence shows that she had a contused wound on the bridge of the nose which had fractured the nasal bone, an incised wound on the left nostril, a punctured wound on the left cheek and four broken ribs on the right side of the chest and three broken ribs on the left side of the chest. Death was due, in the opinion of the Civil Surgeon, to asphyxia and shock as the result of the injuries to the ribs and to her face. On the next morning at 7-30, Raghubir reported the occurrence saying that Mt. Shyama was greatly troubled with asthma and it appeared that she had committed suicide by throwing herself into the well. The Civil Surgeon when examined in the-Court of the committing Magistrate stated that the fracture of the ribs was caused: before death and could have resulted from a fall in a well, but death was due to asphyxia caused either by pressure on the chest or on the mouth or nose. She did not die from drowning, so that she was dead before she got into the well and the incised and punctured wounds on the face could not have been caused by a fall.

(2.) Taking all the injuries together, it appears to us that the fracture of the ribs was due to the murderer kneeling on her chest while he was causing asphyxia. We may here add that her ornaments and the scale and other things which she was carrying were pointed out by the appellant and this fact also disproves the possibility of Mt. Shyama having committed suicide. Raghubir, the nephew, Mt. Sharbati, an aunt of the deceased, and Mt. Tirbeni, her daughter, who all lived in the same house, prove that the appellant owed a very small sum of money to the deceased. Mt. Tirbeni puts the debt at Be. 1 but the other two witnesses say he owed Rs. 2, and this is also the statement of P.W. Genda of Maupur who at 4-30 saw the appellant and the deceased near a tree quarrelling about that debt. Mt. Shyama according to him was demanding Rs. 2 and abusing the accused who promised to pay the money in two or three days. Considering that Mt. Tirbeni disagrees with three witnesses as to the amount owed we prefer the evidence of the greater number of witnesses especially as Genda is not connected with either side and his evidence is therefore not suspicious on the ground of partiality or for the matter of that on any other ground.

(3.) The next and very important witness is Ganga Sahai of the village of the appellant. He says that in the evening he saw the deceased leaving his village with the accused following her, which we only take to mean that he was walking in the same direction a few paces behind her. This was the last time that the deceased was seen alive and seeing how near Bhaupur and Maupur villages are it must have been only a few minutes before she was murdered. Ganga Sahai is an independent witness of the village of the appellant who has no reason whatsoever to give false evidence against the appellant and we accept his statement as true. Sub-Inspector Harmohan Singh, who was absent when the report of the finding of the corpse was made, took up the investigation on the 14 and arrested the appellant on that day. The appellant took him and witnesses Ganga Ram, Maqsud Ahmad, Nand Ram and Sundar Lal to a place 45 paces from his house and dug out silver ornaments and two eight anna pieces of the deceased and handed them over. He then took the same persons to a sugarcane field where he picked up a bundle containing the balance, chadars, weights and other things which the deceased had with her at the time of the occurrence and handed them over. These two places are far one from the other, one being north of the village and the other being south of it. A dhoti which the appellant was wearing was taken from him and sent to the chemical examiner, and the dhoti was found to have a number of small blood stains, none being larger than half an inch. There were seven such places on the dhoti. The dhoti was sent to the imperial serologist, but somehow or other his report was not placed on the record, as it should have been, and there is no evidence therefore that the blood was human blood.