DIGESHWAR MISTRY @ DIGU MISTRY Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 6th June, 2007 passed by the then First Additional Sessions Judge, Chatra in Sessions Trial no. 122 of 2002 whereby and whereunder the court having found the appellant guilty for committing murder of his brother Khemlal Mistry @ Vishwakarma convicted him for the offence punishable under section 302 and also under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code and was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/ - for the offence punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. However, no separate sentence was awarded for the offence punishable under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE case of the prosecution, as has been projected by the prosecution, is that the deceased Khemlal Mistry @ Vishwakarma used to go to the river side, at the meeting point of three rivers, on each Amavasya day for offering puja. On 14.11.2001 also, which was an Amavasya day, the deceased left home at 6.00 P.M. for going to the place of worship at the confluence of the three rivers, but he did not return home in the night. In the next morning, Tetri Devi (P.W. 15), the wife of the deceased and also other family members left the village in search of the deceased. They did find the headless dead body of the deceased at the bank of the river but failed to find out the head of the dead body.

(3.) ON the next day i.e. on 16.11.2001, when Ajay Kumar Singh, the then officer -in -charge of Tandwa Police Station received rumour that someone has killed Khemlal Mistry @ Vishwakarma of village Tesar Chappa, he came to the village and recorded the fardbeyan of Tetri Devi, the wife of the deceased, at 7.30 A.M. wherein she disclosed that when her husband did not return home in the night, she went along with Thakurain Keshari Devi in search of her husband at the place where her husband used to worship and found a headless dead body there. She raised suspicion against the appellant as a few months before, the appellant had threatened to chop off her tongue, on account of some dispute in between them. On the basis of the said fardbeyan (Ext. 5), a formal FIR (Ext. 6) was drawn and the Investigating Officer took up investigation of the case then and there, in which course, he seized certain articles meant to be used for worshiping Lord Shiva. The Investigating Officer held inquest on the dead body of the deceased and then sent the dead body for post -mortem examination.