PRADEEP KUMAR - (1.) .This criminal appeal is directed against the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 27.1.2001 and 30.1.2001 passed by Sri Mazhar Imam, learned 7th Additional Sessions Judge, Palamau at Daltonganj in Sessions Trial No. 440 of 1996, by which judgment the learned Additional Sessions Judge found the appellant guilty under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and also under Section 380 of the Indian Penal Code and convicted him thereunder and sentenced the appellant to undergo rigorous imprisonment for ten years for the offence under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and further sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years, for the offence under Section 380 of the Indian Penal Code, however, both the sentences have been directed to run concurrently.
(2.) THE prosecution case was initiated on the basis of fardbeyan given by the informant, Sumitra Devi, who was examined in Court as P.W. 7 on 31.7.1995 at 10.50 A.M. stating therein that on 21.7.1995 at about 3 P.M., when she was working in her field, the accused, Budhan Baitha came and asked her to vacate her house, whereupon she stated that her husband is in jail and he should talk to her husband when he comes back. There was a verbal fight for sometime and thereafter the villagers gathered there and the accused went away. She has further stated that in the night after taking her meal, she was sleeping with her youngest child Arvind inside her house in the dhaba, when at about 11 P.M. in the night she woke -up hearing the sound of breaking of nariya tiles and she came out of the house by opening the door whereupon the accused, Budhan Baitha caught hold of her and after throwing her on the cot he committed rape upon her.
(3.) SHE has further alleged that after committing rape upon her the accused, Budhan Baitha snatched the earring from her ear and 'Chhuchhi ' from her nose and ran away;