- (1.) This judgment will dispose of Criminal Appeal Nos. 871 and 869 of 2006.
(2.) The facts are as under: The Appellants, Mission Suklabaidhya and Uttam Chakraborty were friends. Mission Suklabaidhya, who was a retired Army personnel, was married to Gita Das deceased. The couple had a child Marjon PW-6 who was about 4 or 5 years old when the incident happened. The deceased was also pregnant at that time and was carrying a foetus about 8 months old. As the deceased was employed as a school teacher, the couple had engaged one Panchami Suklabaidya PW-1, aged 16 years, as a domestic help, and she resided in the house of the couple. As per the prosecution story, Mission Suklabaidhya and PW-1 developed an illicit relationship and when this was discovered by the deceased, there were frequent quarrels between the couple. As per the prosecution story, on the night intervening the 13th and 14th April 2004 at about 2.00 a.m. Radhu Paul PW-4, a resident of Lala Town, accompanied by 4 or 5 persons went to the house of Nioti Das PW-1, the mother of the deceased, situated at Abdullapur, and told her that her daughter had fallen ill and asked her to accompany them to the Police Station. On reaching the Police Station, PW-1 found Mission Suklabaidhya and Panchami Suklabaidhya present there and learnt from them that her daughter had died of burn injuries. She thereupon lodged a FIR at about 2.30 a.m. to the effect that she had learnt from her son-in-law and PW-1 that her daughter had died in a fire caused by kerosene oil but she further went on to say that she had been killed by her husband. During the course of the investigation, it transpired that accused Uttam Chakraborty had also present when the deceased had been done to death. The statement of PW-1 was also recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in which she stated that both the accused had been responsible for the murder as the deceased was objecting to her relationship with Mission Suklabaidhya accused.
(3.) On the completion of the investigation the Appellants were brought to trial on a charge of murder. The prosecution relied primarily on the evidence of PW-6 Marjon Suklabaidhya, who was projected as an eye witness to what had happened on the fateful day, PW-1 Panchami Suklabaidya aforesaid, PW-2 the Executive Magistrate Manash Das, who held an inquest on the dead body and had noticed a huge cut injury on the person of the deceased, Radhu Paul PW-4 who stated that he had seen both the accused involved in an animated discussion in front of his shop and when he had gone close to them they had changed the topic and had started discussing some business matter and that after a short while a girl had come out and raised a hue and cry and told Mission Suklabaidhya that his wife had died of burn injuries, Nioti Rani PW-6, the mother of the deceased, who deposed to the illicit relationship of her son-in-law and PW-1, and PW-7 the doctor, Khairuz Zaman Choudhary, who had carried out the post-mortem examination and had found very severe cut injuries on the stomach which indicated that the foetus had been removed.;