- (1.) Fifteen persons faced trial for alleged commission of offences punishable under S. 302 read with Ss. 149, 148 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short the 'IPC'). Accused No. 9 (appellant No. 5 in the present appeals) additionally faced trial for offence punishable under S. 27 of the Arms Act, 1959 (in short the 'Arms Act'). Accused No. 2-Mahendra Rai (appellant No. 8 in the present appeals) who was separately charged for offence punishable under S. 302, I.P.C. was acquitted of the said charge but instead was convicted as aforenoted in terms of S. 302 read with S. 149, I.P.C. Out of the 15 accused persons, two were acquitted and three died during pendency of the appeals before the High Court.
(2.) Prosecution version as unfolded during trial and which formed the foundation of the prosecution case is essentially as follows : On 17-8-1983, one Sarjug Rai (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased') lost his life allegedly at the hands of the accused. About 5-6 years preceding the incident when Sarjug Rai was killed there was a partition of the family properties. Kamal Rai was his nephew who nourished serious grudge against his uncle, as according to him there was unequal partition of ancestral properties. Said Kamal Rai, strongly believed that construction of new house and purchase of tractor, subsequent to partition by the deceased was made from cash which had not been divided during partition. Though motive appears to be trivial and also stale but where direct evidence is available, motive pales into insignificance. The accusations appearing from the First Information Report of Ram Babu Rai (P.W. 14), son of the deceased and also narrations made by the witnesses at trial are that on 17-8-1983 while deceased at about 8.00 a.m. had gone to a temple after taking holy dip in a pond, adjacent to the temple, the appellants holding weapons came down from the house of Kamal Rai and came to the temple, pursuant to which Kamal Rai while exhorting others to liquidate the deceased dealt blows with a hard and blunt substance on his head as he had been unfair to him in partitioning the ancestral properties. Dukha Sah (P.W. 6), the priest of the temple locked the northern gate of the temple to save the deceased. However, he could not be saved as accused-appellant-Deosharan Rai broke open the lock and dragged the deceased outside, pursuant to which on exhortation made by Kamal Rai all dealt indiscriminate blows on him with lethal weapon which they were carrying. When Shatrughan Pandey (P.W. 1), Ram Chandra Rout (P.W. 2), Nandlal Pandey (P.W. 4) and Sita Saran Rai (P.W. 5) came to rescue on hearing alarms raised by the son of the deceased (P.W. 14), they could not proceed to rescue the deceased on being scared by the firing resorted to by accused-appellant-Satya Narain Rai. Ram Babu Rai (P.W. 14) informed the police who visited village Bishanpur and recorded his statement, pursuant to which investigation commenced. The police during investigation apart from recording statement of witnesses under S. 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short the 'Code') visited the place of occurrence, and also made seizure of some offending articles from the place of occurrence. On conclusion of investigation, he laid charge-sheet before the Court against all the 15 accused persons who were eventually put on trial. In the trial, the prosecution examined 17 witnesses. The accused persons pleaded innocence and false implication and examined 16 witnesses to counter the allegations attributed to them. Those examined by the prosecution were the villagers of Bishanpur, some outsiders, who were either relations of the deceased or claimed to have visited the village for holding panchayati for resolution of the dispute pending between the two parties, the doctor and also the police officer.
(3.) As noted supra, accused persons pleaded innocence and false implication due to animosity persisting between the parties. Three of the accused persons pleaded alibi to improbabilise their physical presence at the site of occurrence. Out of the prosecution witnesses, seven i.e. P.Ws. 2 to 5, 6, 10, 14 were stated to be eye-witnesses. On consideration of the evidence on record, learned 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Sitamarhi as aforenoted convicted 13 accused persons, acquitted two. In respect of three who died during the pendency of the appeal before the High Court the appeals abated. The convicted accused preferred three separate appeals before the High Court which by the impugned judgment disposed of them.;