LexJAYANTA SIL versus STATE OF ASSAM
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~H [2010] 9 S.C.R. 615 JAYANTA SIL v. STATE OF ASSAM (Criminal Appeal No. 1345 of 2007) AUGUST 4, 2010 [HARJIT SINGH BEDI AND C.K. PRASAD, JJ.] Penal Code, 1860: A B s.302 - Deceased accompanied by accused and co- c accused- Accused assaulting deceased by a sharp cutting weapon, resulting into his death - Acquittal by trial court of both - Conviction of accused by High Court - HELD: The view taken by trial court was not justified - It has completely misread the implication of the evidence given by five 0 witnesses, three of them w~re virtually eye-witnesses and two of them totally independent- The prosecution evidence is further corroborated by thi£Qoctor's evidence - PW. 1 is the wife of the deceased -Adrrqttedly she had no animus against the accused and had been attracted to the place after hearing E her husband's cries - The Oj;currence took place on the road opposite the house of the deceased - The presence of PWs. 5 and 6 cannot also be doubted - The deceased as well as these two witnesses had attended the 'Shradh' feast and the murder took place while they were returning home - The statements of these three witnesses are further corroborated F by the statement of PWs 2 and 3 to whom PW 1 had given the information and told them that the accused and the co- accused had murdered her husband - Statement of PW 11 is equally important and there is absolutely no doubt that his statement with regard to the visit of the accused to his house G late at night with a request that he be allowed to stay on cannot be disbelieved - This was indeed a strange request as the accused and PW 11 belonged to the same village and there 615 H 616 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 9 S.C.R. A is no plausible explanation as to why the accused chose to stay for the night in the house of PW 11 and not to return to his own house a short distance away - Appeal dismissed - Code of Criminal Procedure - Appeal against acquittal. 8 Mahendra Pratap Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh (2009) c 11 sec 334 - cited. Case Law Reference: (2009) 11 sec 334 cited para 6 CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal Appeal No. 1345 of 2007. From the Judgment & Order dated 08.12.2006/05.01.2007 of the High Court of Gauhati in Govt. Criminal Appeal No. 33 D of 1998. E Soumyajit Pani (for Sunil Kumar Jain) for the Appellant. Nevneet Kumar (for Corporate Law Group) for the Respondent. The following order of the Court was delivered ORDER This is a statutory appeal arising out of the judgment of the F High Court dated 5th January, 2007. The prosecution story is as under: At about 10.00 p.m. on 28th August 1994 Jayanta Sil the G appellant and Dimbeswar Sil (since acquitted) were returning from the house of Kripa Das after attending a feast. They were also accompanied by the deceased Kandarpa and as the three were near the house of the deceased on PWD Road the appellant assaulted the deceased with a sharp cutting weapon. Hearing the cries of the deceased, the complainant, PW.1- H JAYANTA SIL v. STATE OF ASSAM 617 Bhadrata Das, the wife of the deceased, came out from her A house and saw the accused running away. Her shouts attracted several other persons to the spot including Mridul Das-PW.5 and Daya Chand-PW.6 who too saw the accused running away. It also appears that soon after the incident Biswajit Das- 8 PW.2 and Uday Dutta-PW.3 also reached the place from their houses some distance away and they too were told by PW.1 as to what had transpired. The evidence further is that Jayant, the appellant herein, rushed to the house of Nisikanta-PW.11 in the same village and requested him to let him stay for the C night and when he left early the next day, PW.11 saw that he had left behind a khukri and a torch. The appellant and Dimbeshwar were accordingly brought to trial for an offence punishable under Sec.302 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The Trial Court on a consideration of the evidence held that the statement of PW.1 could not be taken at its face value as there D were discrepancies in her statement made in the FIR vis.-a- vis. the statement in Court and it appeared that she had not in fact seen the incident nor had seen the accused running away after committing the murder. Likewise it was held that the statements of PW.5 and PW.6 could not be believed as they E were not eye-witnesses and were not clear as to the exact place where the incident had happened as there appeare
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