- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decided
- 27 January 1997
- Bench
- K. Ramaswamy, G. T. Nanavati
- Result
- Appeal allowed.
Headnote
Criminal Law :
Penal Code, 1860 :
Ss. 302 r/w. 34, 304 Pan ll-Murder--<:onviction-Assault-No cor-roborating evidence by the doctor as to dragging of the deceased by the accused-Evidence of eye-witnesses discrepant on material .par-ticulars-Cross-examination of PW 1 revealed there was no blood stain outside the house-Had there been dragging there would be trail of blood-Hence conviction and sentence of appellants nos. 2 and 3 for an offence under S.304, Pmt 11 set aside.
Headnote as published in the Digital Supreme Court Reports by the Supreme Court of India. Paragraph references point to the judgment below.
Judgment
Delay condoned.
Leave granted.
We have heard learned counsel on both sides.
By order dated November 8, 1996 the petition was dismissed as against the first petitioner, Bhikari Behera and notice was ordered in respect of the remaining two petitioners, namely; Pramod Kumar Mantri, Bhagirathi Rout. The case of the prosecution is that on May 28, 1988 at about 10.00 a.m., all the three accused armed with Thengas entered into the house of deceased Bauribandhu. A-1 had hit him on the head twice and threw him down. Thereafter, the three accused had dragged the deceased outside the house, when wife and son of the deceased raised alarm, they ran away from the place, FIR was lodged at about 11.30 A.M. and thereafter investigation was conducted. The appellants and two others have been charged under Section 302 read with under Section 149 I.P.C. The Courts below convicted the appellants for an offence pun.ishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 I.P.C. As regards the assault by the appellants, there is no corroborating evidence by the doctor as to dragging of the deceased by the accused. Even the evidence of the eye-witnesses is discrepant on material particulars. Accused Nos. 2 and 3 were standing behind PW -2. If really all the three accused had entered into the house all of them would have attacked the deceased. That is no the case of the prosecution. Under these circumstances, the prosecution cannot be said to have proved beyond reasonable doubt that the appellants shared the common intention with A-1 to kill the deceased. Even the evidence of PW -1 that they entered the house and dragged the deceased is not reliable since the admission in the cross-examination is that there was no blood stain outside the house. Had the dragging really been there, there would be trail of blood.
The appeals are accordingly allowed. The conviction and sentence of the appellants Nos. 2 and 3 for an offence under Section 304, Part II, IPC stand set aside.
Case details
Arising from
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Criminal Appeal Nos. 127-28 of 1997.
From the Judgment and Order dated 5.4.95 of the Orissa High Court in Crl.A. No. 109-110 of 1989.
Appearances
Janaranjan Das and K.N. Tripathy for the Appellants.
Indrajit Roy and P.N. Misra for the Respondent.
Source: Supreme Court of India, Digital Supreme Court Reports, via the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (CC BY 4.0). Text was extracted from the official PDF and may contain conversion errors. Check the official PDF before relying on it.