RAJ KUMAR ORAON Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. Manoj Kumar, learned counsel for the appellants and Mr. Amaresh Kumar, learned APP for the State.

(2.) All the four Criminal Appeals have been preferred against the Judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 13.07.1992, passed by the Additional Judicial Commissioner, Lohardaga in connection with S.T. No. 57 of 1989/165 of 1990 (Lohardaga P.S. Case No.41/1988 corresponding to G.R.No. 126/1988 whereby the appellants Rabindra Kumar Sinha alias Ravi Lal [In Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 137/1992 (R)], Balgobind Oraon [In Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 157/1992 (R)] and Ashok Kumar Singh [In Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 160/1992 (R)] have been held guilty and convicted for the offence under Sections 396 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo R.I. for life. The appellant Raj Kumar Oraon[In Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 123 of 1992 (R)] has been held guilty and convicted for the offence under Sections 216 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo R.I. for 5 years.

(3.) Case of the prosecution in short is that on 09.04.1988, at 7:30 p.m., "Sampurna Ramayan" Cinema was being telecasted on the Television. The informant Baijnath Ram along with his father Jagdish Ram, uncle Naresh Ram, mother Shanti Devi, younger sisters, mother of Suresh Ram, neighbours Mahavir Baitha, Madan Mahto, wife and children of Havildar Chandradeo Yadav were watching the same at his house. There was power cut at about 7:15 p.m. which however restored after ten minutes and film resumed thereafter. At about 7:30 Havildar Chandradeo Yadav (since deceased) returned from duty along with constables Kailash Yadav and Ram Khelawan Paswan and went to house of the informant to call his wife to serve dinner. The door of the house was opened. The three entered front room of the house and Havildar called his wife and told her to go home. At this time, four dacoits entered the room, two dacoits stood guard at the door and four remained outside the house. Five of them were armed with small pistols, one was armed with a big gun, two were armed with 'churas' and rest were armed with Lathies. The dacoits aimed pistols and churas at the people assembled there causing chaos and fear amongst them. Thereafter the dacoits entered the room, broke open the box and began to take out ornaments and good clothes. One of the dacoits aimed chura at Havildar when he caught hold of two dacoits standing by him and pinned them down but one of the dacoits fired at Havildar and another stabbed the Havildar due to which he fell down in injured condition in front of the door. One of the dacoits gave a blow with butt of gun on the head of the informant as a result of which the informant sustained bleeding injury. One dacoit also caused hurt to mother of the informant as a result she fell down. Constable Ram Khelawan Paswan caught hold of one dacoit while another dacoit having big gun, fired. The dacoits entered all the rooms of the house of the informant, removed his belongings and left from back door. Some dacoits had taken out sewing machine, a patromax and a suitcase from the front room and had kept the same adjacent to the main door but they could not take away these things. While the dacoits were ransacking the house, the inmates could not raise hulla out of fear but after their retreat, the inmates raised hulla. Thereafter, many persons assembled there. Dacoits were saying that when they could not get job, they were doing this job of dacoity. The dacoits were 10 - 12 in number, all were young and having full pants and bush shirts, were tall and dwarf, white complexioned, reddish white and black complexioned. The informant could identify each of them by seeing their faces. After the dacoits retreated, the injured Havildar was shifted to Sadar Hospital, Lohardaga but he breathed his last on the way to the hospital. During aforementioned incident, the dacoits fired thrice and one of the shot hit a dacoit too.