EMPEROR Vs. MANU CHIK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Two brothers Manu Chik, aged about 32, and Sita Chik, aged about 26, of village Labdera, police station Kurdeg, have been convicted by the Judicial Commissioner of Banchi, Manu under Section 302, I.P.C. for murdering his paternal aunt Budhni, a widow, on 18 January 1937, and Sita under Section 201, I.P.C. for concealing her dead body in Labdera tank. Manu has been sentenced to death and Sita to five years rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) There is a reference under Section 374, Criminal P.C. for confirmation of the sentence of death which has been heard along with two appeals, one filed by Manu and the other by Sita. The prosecution story as disclosed from the evidence may be stated as follows: The husband of Mt. Budhni and the father of the two accused were brothers, both of them residing in the same village Labdera in contiguous houses. Budhni after she became a widow lived there for sometime with her two infant sons. Due to quarrels with her nephews, the two accused, and their father, she went with her sons to live in a village called Jhunka-Chapar with a relation Sobhnath Chik. Subsequently she alone, leaving behind her sons at Jhunka- Chapar, shifted to another village Khinda, two miles from Labdera, where she lived with Gobra Chik a distant relation of her husband.

(3.) In December 1935, while Budhni was at Jhunka-Chapar, the father of the accused went to her but never returned and subsequently his dead body was found. The accused who believed Budhni to be a witch suspected that she was responsible for their father's death. There were several other deaths in their family.