Srikant Das and Another vs Emperor

The Sessions Judge of the Santal Parganas has, in agreement with all the four assessors with whose aid the case was tried, found Srikant Das alias Abdhut and Gour Gopal Das, guilty of the murder of one Nabkishore Das and sentenced them to death. The case is before us on a reference made by the learned Sessions Judge for confirmation of the death sentences and also on appeal by the two men concerned. That Nabkishore Das was murdered on the night of the 20th August last is beyond question. He was seen alive that night before going to bed and was found dead with his throat, "cut", the next morning, when his neice Santabala Dasi went about cleaning the house.

This was in the village of Bharchandi in the "No Police tract" of the District in the Jamtara sub-division, and Nakul Chandra Das, nephew of Nabkishore, was at once sent to inform the Sadar of the Circle, Rakhal Chandra Sarkhel, at Dakhinbahal, about a mile away. The Sadar recorded the information given by Nakul and at once came to the scene. He held an inquest, at which the injuries on the deceased were noted along with marks at two places on his pillow-marks which are described in the inquest report as "exactly like those of (an) iron bhujali or dao" as "the weapon was put upon the pillow after cutting." The body was then sent to Jamtara for the usual post mortem examination. Nakul''s information did not name or suspect any offender; but the Sadar, who made a sketch of the marks on the pillow, went on showing this to various blacksmiths in the neighbourhood until the 28th when he came upon Raghu Rana, a blacksmith of Kusmapahari, P.W. 11, whose story is that the appellant Abdhut had got him to sharpen a dao in Baisak or Jeth last. Abdhut, who is a grand-son of a sister of Nabakishore, was thereupon questioned on the 29th with the result that Gour Gopal, the other appellant, was also sent for and questioned.

Gour Gopal next morning pointed out a well from which a dao was recovered, and this dao was later on identified before a Sub-Deputy Magistrate at Jamtara by Raghu Rana as the very weapon that he had sharpened for Abdhut. The two appellants were then sent to the subdivisional Magistrate of Jamtara as confessing accused. The Magistrate sent them to jail for twenty four hours'' reflection, and in due course, after giving them ample warnings, recorded their confessions. It appears from these confessions that with the direct assistance of one man and the indirect help of several others they murdered Nabakishore because (among other reasons) he had interfered with their intrigues with Sushilabala Dasi, the young wife of a relative named Ajodhya who works in Bamangawa, and Ranubaia Dasi, Ajodhya''s widowed sister.

The principal evidence against the two accused is these confessions, though they were retracted when the Subdivisional Magistrate commenced his inquiry preliminary to the commitment to Sessions.

It has been urged on behalf of the appellants that these confessions ought not to be believed. Mr. De has pointed out from the evidence of the Inspector of Police that the two appellants were present when the Sadar came to Bharchandi after recording Nakul''s information and began to look into the matter; and he has urged that the presence of these young men, they are both of them about 18 years of age, is a strong indication that they could not have been among the murderers. (After considering the circumstances under which the confessions were made, His Lordship held that they were voluntary and that the assessors and Sessions Judge were right in accepting them. The judgment then proceeded).

Mr. De has also urged that the confessions are inadmissible in evidence because the Subdivisional Magistrate to whom they were made and by whom they were recorded, is, it is argued, a police officer. In support of this contention he has referred to the Santal Parganas Rural Police Regulation 4 of 1910, and to the rules made by the Local Government under it. It does not, however, seem that there is anything in this Regulation and the rules to warrant his being treated as a police officer. Even u/s 4, of the Indian Police Act No. 5 of 1861, the administration of the police throughout a district, though vested in a District Superintendent and Assistant District Superintendents of Police, is under the general control and direction of the District Magistrate, and yet this has never been taken to make a police officer of the District Magistrate.

The position of the Deputy Commissioner or of the Subdivisional Magistrate under him, under Regulation 4 of 1910, does not seem to be so different from that of the District Magistrate in other districts as to make police officers of the former. As was pointed out in the Full Bench decision in Radha Kishun Marwari Vs. Emperor, , the term "police officer" has not been defined anywhere and must be taken not in any technical sense but in its more popular meaning. It has not been urged before us, nor does there seem to be any reason to think, that in common parlance and among the generality of people, the Subdivisional Officer of Jamtara would be taken to be a police officer at all; he is a member not of the police service but of the provincial civil service, and much of his work is judicial.

The two appellants have thus been rightly found guilty of the murder. As to the sentence. Mr. De has referred not merely to the age of the appellants, both of whom are little more than boys, but also to several peculiar circumstances in the case, particularly the instigation of Sushilabala and Ranubala and the apparently abnormal condition of the families of these Dases with stories of frequent disputes, amours and instigations to crime. These considerations apply not only to Abdhut but also to Gour Gopal.

The ends of justice will be sufficiently served if these appellants are, therefore, awarded the lesser of the two sentences authorized by law. The appeal, therefore, succeeds to this extent, that though the conviction of the two appellants must be affirmed, the sentence passed on them is reduced to transportation for life. The reference is discharged.