JUGAL BIHARI DAS Vs. THE STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE sole appellant Jugal Bihari Das @ Saptrishi Ugal Bihari Das has preferred this appeal against the judgment of conviction dated 21.12.2004 and order of sentence dated 22.12.2004 passed by Additional Sessions Judge -I, F.T.C. -VIII, Jamshedpur in Sessions Trial No. 446 of 1994 whereby and whereunder the trial court convicted the appellant for committing offence under Section 304 Part -II of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of five years.

(2.) THE prosecution case, as it appears from the fardbeyan of Renuka Roy (P.W. 6), the informant, recorded on 21.05.1994 at 8 a.m. at Bagbera police station, in short, is that on 20.05.1994 at about 8.15 p.m. she along with her husband and children were sitting near the door of her house when three persons came on a motorcycle and out of them one of the person was the appellant Jugal Bihari Das a hermit of a 'Math' and called her husband Raghunath Roy and told that one person is calling you at Math and thereafter out of the three persons on motorcycle, one came down and the said hermit asked to come on foot and the appellant requested her husband to sit on the motorcycle and brought him to Math. At about 8.45 p.m., she heard an alarm "Bachao -Bachao" coming from Math side and she identified the alarm to be of her husband. She immediately went to the Math with her small child and saw her husband screaming in injured condition and was not in a position to speak anything and Jugal Bihari Das, the appellant was standing there with a 'Danda' in his hand. On enquiry, he said that Raghunath Roy has fallen down from coconut tree. Thereafter, the informant came back to her house and again went to the place of occurrence with her neighbours and brought her injured husband to the house. She found injuries on the head of her husband, swelling over left eye and blood patches on the right chest of her husband. She has also stated that in the meantime her father -in -law Milan Roy (P.W. 1) came to the house but as there was no means to go to hospital in night, local village medicines were used on the wounds but at about 1.30 a.m. in the same night her husband succumbed to the injuries. Since it was night, she could not go to the police station. She has also stated that the place of occurrence is almost 500 yards east of her house and as there was some dispute between her husband and the appellant over irrigation of 'Bagan', she suspected that the appellant assaulted her husband with Danda on his head causing his death. The police, after investigation submitted the charge sheet against the appellant under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code but on commitment the Sessions Court framed the charge against the appellant under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and the appellant was put on trial.

(3.) THE defence, in his statement recorded under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, completely denied his complicity in the murder of the deceased rather took the plea of alibi but as no evidence in support of plea of alibi was brought on record by the defence, the court below rejected his plea.