SRIKANT DAS Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Sessions Judge of the Santal Parganas has, in agreement with all the four assessors with whose aid the case was tried, found Srikant Das alias Abdhut and Gour Gopal Das, guilty of the murder of one Nabkishore Das and sentenced them to death. The case is before us on a reference made by the learned Sessions Judge for confirmation of the death sentences and also on appeal by the two men concerned. That Nabkishore Das was murdered on the night of the 20 August last is beyond question. He was seen alive that night before going to bed and was found dead with his throat, "cut", the next morning, when his neice Santabala Dasi went about cleaning the house.

(2.) This was in the village of Bharchandi in the "No Police tract" of the District in the Jamtara sub-division, and Nakul Chandra Das, nephew of Nabkishore, was at once sent to inform the Sadar of the Circle, Rakhal Chandra Sarkhel, at Dakhinbahal, about a mile away. The Sadar recorded the information given by Nakul and at once came to the scene. He held an inquest, at which the injuries on the deceased were noted along with marks at two places on his pillow-marks which are described in the inquest report as "exactly like those of (an) iron bhujali or dao" as "the weapon was put upon the pillow after cutting." The body was then sent to Jamtara for the usual post mortem examination. Nakul's information did not name or suspect any offender; but the Sadar, who made a sketch of the marks on the pillow, went on showing this to various blacksmiths in the neighbourhood until the 28 when he came upon Raghu Rana, a blacksmith of Kusmapahari, P.W. 11, whose story is that the appellant Abdhut had got him to sharpen a dao in Baisak or Jeth last. Abdhut, who is a grand-son of a sister of Nabakishore, was thereupon questioned on the 29 with the result that Gour Gopal, the other appellant, was also sent for and questioned.

(3.) Gour Gopal next morning pointed out a well from which a dao was recovered, and this dao was later on identified before a Sub-Deputy Magistrate at Jamtara by Raghu Rana as the very weapon that he had sharpened for Abdhut. The two appellants were then sent to the subdivisional Magistrate of Jamtara as confessing accused. The Magistrate sent them to jail for twenty four hours reflection, and in due course, after giving them ample warnings, recorded their confessions. It appears from these confessions that with the direct assistance of one man and the indirect help of several others they murdered Nabakishore because (among other reasons) he had interfered with their intrigues with Sushilabala Dasi, the young wife of a relative named Ajodhya who works in Bamangawa, and Ranubaia Dasi, Ajodhya's widowed sister.