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Judgment
The present petition by the State seeks leave to appeal against the judgment dated 5th February, 2011 passed by the learned Ad-hoc Additional Sessions Judge (FTC), Bhubaneswar in Criminal Trial No.2/18 of 2009 arising out of G.R. Case No.1804 of 2008 corresponding to Mancheswar P.S. Case No.118 of 2008 acquitting the Opposite Parties-Accused of the offences under Section 302, 364, 201, 379, 120-B read with Section 34 of IPC.
The case of the prosecution was that the accused had kidnapped the deceased Pritam Priyadarshi Das @ Pinku and had murdered him by assaulting with a Katari and chapad in furtherance of their common intention. The crime is said to have taken place on 24th April, 2008 at 11 am.
In order to prove its case, the prosecution examined as many as twenty seven witnesses whereas none was examined on behalf of the accused. With there being no eye-witnesses, the case proceeded on the circumstantial evidence. One of the key suspects was the accused Ram Chandra Tripathy whose daughter was having an affair with the deceased. While the parents of the deceased, i.e., PWs-1 and 21 were willing, the accused Ram Chandra Tripathy did not agree to negotiate and there was, therefore, misunderstanding between both the families. The golden ring presented to the daughter of Ram Chandra Tripathy was returned at the police station after Ram Chandra Tripathy lodged a written report there against the deceased.
On 24th April, 2008 the deceased had been to the college of the girl to meet her. This was noticed by Ram Chandra Tripathy. The deceased then returned from the college in his motorcycle. He was last seen on that date at around 6.30 pm proceeding from his house after informing his mother (PW-1) that he would return by 8 pm. When thereafter he did not respond to the repeated calls on his mobile phone, PWs-1 and 21 suspected that Ram Chandra Tripathy must have kidnapped and killed their son. On 25th April, 2008 PW-21, the father of the deceased lodged a missing report in the Police station. PWs-8 and 23 are the two independent witnesses who are supposed to have seen the deceased standing with six to seven persons near Kalajhari.
On 29th April, 2008 five days after he was missing, the dead body of the deceased was recovered behind the Barang college. PW-21 identified the body as being that of the deceased. The mobile phone of the deceased was found in his pocket in a broken condition. The doctor (P-22) who conducted the postmortem examination found as many as eleven injuries of which there were many incised and chopped wounds and fractures. There was no doubt that the death was homicidal as a result of the hemorrhage on account of the injuries mentioned in the postmortem report. Even at the time of postmortem, the body was highly decomposed.
In order to prove the theory of last seen, the prosecution relied on PWs-8 and 23. Unfortunately, neither of them supported the prosecution on this aspect. This was the important circumstance of last seen was unable to be satisfactorily proved by the prosecution.
Even as regards the weapons used to commit the crime, there were two independent witnesses projected by the prosecution as having been witnesses to the recovery. These were PWs-10 and 18. Again unfortunately neither of them supported the case of the prosecution at the trial regarding the death of the deceased.
The trial Court has further noticed that although many independent witnesses were examined, i.e., PWs-3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 15, 20 and 23, none of them supported the case of the prosecution. Again certain other independent witnesses, i.e., PWs-10, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 19 also did not support the case of the prosecution.
Since the case was based on the circumstantial evidence, each of the links of chain of circumstances had to be satisfactorily proved. The links had to form a continuous chain that pointed unerringly to the guilt of the accused.
On a careful analysis of the entire evidence, the trial Court came to the conclusion that the prosecution had not been able to prove the case against the accused beyond all reasonable doubt and therefore, extended to them the benefit of doubt.
Having carefully examined the evidence with the assistance of learned Additional Government Advocate for the State, this Court is unable to come to a different conclusion than that reached by the trial Court.
There is no merit in the present petition. The CRLLP is accordingly dismissed.
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