PULIN TANTI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, Pulin Tanti, has been convicted by the Sessions Judge of Bhagalpore under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to transportation for life for killing his brother s widow whom he had been keeping as his mistress. The assessors were of the opinion that the deceased had been murdered, but they found no proof that the accused had caused her death.

(2.) The facts of the case appear to be these:

(3.) After the deceased became a Widow she went to live with her father, but after some time she was brought back by the appellant to his house to live with him and his mother. An intimacy between the; two resulted in her pregnancy, followed by bickerings and quarrels between the deceased on one side and the appellant and his mother on the other. An appeal by the woman to the village community led to a panchayat, at which the appellant acknowledged the paternity of the unborn child and agreed to maintain her. This, instead of removing the unpleasantness, accentuated it, since the mother realized that the woman s presence was the cause of her son not marrying a wife in a regular way. On 5th November last, there had been a quarrel between the deceased and the appellant when it is said he struck her, and. the next morning was found the headless corpse of the woman lying between the rails on the railway line which passes the village Sahebnagar, the home of the accused. On information being received at Tildanga, a railway station, of the fact of a corpse lying on the line, the Permanant Way Inspector, D Cruz, came to the spot at about 8 A.M. on the 5th November. In the evening of the same day the Railway Sub-inspector of Police of Sahebganj went to the spot, and after doing the needful brought the accused to Tildanga, where he was kept for the night. The Sub-inspector again went to the spot the next morning with the accused. The Permanent Way Inspector, D Cruz, also went to the spot that morning. On the 8th November the accused was sent by the police to the Subdivisional Magistrate for his confession to be recorded. There he made a long statement in which, after relating justificatory grounds, he admitted having throttled the womanly severed her head from the body and then placed the headless trunk on the railway line, to give the whole incident an appearance of suicide. At the enquiry, preparatory to commitment, the accused, when questioned adhered to the statement made in his confession. At the trial in the Sessions Court the accused retracted the confession and alleged in his written statement that the confession had been induced by torture.