- (1.) Appellant -Joto Bodra was put on trial on the accusation of committing murder of the deceased -Niral Bodra. The trial court having found the appellant guilty of the charge convicted him for the offence punishable under Sec. 302 of the Indian Penal Code vide its judgment dated 16.3.2004 passed in Sessions Trial No. 40 of 2003 and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life vide order dated 18.3.2004. The case of the prosecution, as is emerging out of the fardbeyan (Ext. -2) of the informant -Basanti Bodra (P.W. 1), is that on 8.9.2002 Niral Bodra, husband of the informant, had gone to the forest for grazing his bullocks. In the evening, when Niral Bodra came home at about 4 O'clock, he was having injury near his eyes. Niral Bodra disclosed to his wife that the same has been caused by the appellant to whom he will not spare. By saying so, Niral Bodra by taking 'tangi' came out of the house. As soon as he came out of the house, he came across with the mother of the appellant and also the appellant who had come there having 'tangi' with him. There, the appellant assaulted Niral Bodra (deceased) indiscriminately as a result of which he died. After three days of the occurrence i.e. on 11.9.2002, Braj Kishore Kumar, Officer Incharge of Bano Police Station when received information at about 8:30 a.m. that some occurrence had taken place at Village -Olhan, he entered it into the station diary and proceeded to the place of occurrence where he reached at about 11:30 a.m. and recorded the fardbeyan (Ext. 2) of the informant -Basanti Bodra (P.W. 1), wife of the deceased, wherein she narrated about the incident, as has been stated above. She further stated that as the bullocks of her husband had eaten out some paddy crops of the appellant, altercation took place in between her husband and the appellant during which course, her husband had been assaulted by the appellant. On the basis of such fardbeyan, a formal FIR (Ext. -3) was drawn and a case was registered against the appellant and the matter was taken up for investigation during which the Investigating Officer held inquest on the dead body of the deceased and prepared an inquest report and sent the dead body for post mortem examination only on 16.9.2002, after delay of almost five days from the date of recording of the fardbeyan for which no explanation has been given by the prosecution nor it could be elicited from the side of the defence. However, Dr. Tulsi Mahto -P.W. 4 upon holding autopsy on the dead body of the deceased, which was highly decomposed, did find that the dead body was having infiltration of maggots. Most of the parts have been eaten out by the maggots. The forehead area of frontal bone was missing. However, the doctor found crack fracture of left parietal bone of posterior part. There was infiltration of blood and blood clot in soft tissues of occipital scalp and in the bony tissues on fractured side. There was fracture of right 2nd to 9th ribs and of left 2nd to 6th ribs. The blood and blood clot was found on the thorax cavity.
(2.) The doctor issued post mortem examination report (Ext. -4) with an opinion that the death was caused due to head injury. Time since death within 5 to 10 days from the time of the post mortem examination. Meanwhile, the Investigating Officer made inspection of the place of occurrence and took the statements of the witnesses.
(3.) On completion of the investigation, when the Investigating Officer submitted charge -sheet against the appellant, cognizance of the offence was taken and in due course, when the case was committed to the Court of Sessions, the appellant was put on trial.;