STATE OF TRIPURA Vs. RANABIR DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Criminal Revision Petition under Sec. 397 read with Sec. 401 of Cr.P.C. is filed for setting aside the order dtd. 20/7/2023 and 5/8/2023 passed in connection with Case No. S.T.(T-1)03 of 2017 by the Learned Additional Session Judge, Court No. 5, West Tripura, Agartala rejecting the prayer of the prosecution to adduce witnesses under Sec. 311 of Cr.P.C.

(2.) The gist of the petition filed by the prosecution in short is that one Chayanika Banik, daughter of late Jitendra Chandra Banik of Kamarpukurpar, Near Math Chowmuhani Bazar, P.S. East Agartala was a Teacher of Modern School at Math Chowmuhani and on 1/10/2015 at about 10:15 hrs. she left her house for the purpose of proceeding towards her school. But she did not return back on that day. Her mother namely Smt. Dipika Banik [PW-1] lodged a missing diary at East Agartala Women Police Station, but said Chayanika Banik could not be traced out after in all probable areas. So the complainant suspected that her daughter namely Chayanika Banik has been kidnapped by any person and on this, she lodged a case to East Agartala Women Police Station vide P.S. No. 2015/WEA/063 dtd. 4/10/2015 under Sec. 366 of IPC. The 1st Investigating Officer examined some witnesses and recorded their statements under Sec. 161 of Cr.P.C. and after that, another Investigating Officer was engaged but later on, the case was endorsed to Crime Investigation Department [CID] for further investigation when Sri Ranabir Bhattacharjee, Sub-Inspector of Police, CID conducted investigation of the case. In course of investigation, the I/O visited the place of occurrence and examined all relevant witnesses, recorded their statement under Sec. 161 of Cr.P.C. and during investigation, the I/O caused arrest of accused persons in connection with this case and as per the confessional statement of the prime accused namely Sri Ranabir Das and Co-accused namely Sri Hrishikesh Deb in presence of Executive Magistrate, hairs along with small pieces of bones, Wrist Watch, etc., were recovered from the Septic Tank in the House of prime accused namely Sri Ranabir Das. During investigation, Post Mortem Examination was done at AGMC and GBP Hospital. Test identification Parade in respect of accused Sri Ranabir Das at Kendriya Sangsodhanagar, Bishalgarh in presence of Judicial Magistrate. During investigation, T.I. Parade was also held in respect of the recovered seized alamats belonging to the victim namely Chayanika Banik in presence of Judicial Magistrate in respect of one Wrist Watch. Further, during investigation, blood samples of the sister and mother of deceased have been sent to the Director, Center for DNA, fingerprinting and diagnostic (CDFD), Hyderabad for DNA Test.

(3.) It was further submitted that the elder sister of Chayanika Banik got married in the year 2007 to one Ranadhir Das, elder brother of accused Sri Ranabir Das and after the marriage, a close relationship of love had been developed in between Ranabir Das and Chayanika Banik and consequently, their marriage ceremony was held on 23/7/2012. That time, the accused Ranabir Das who was a Nayeb Subdedar was posted as In-charge BDDS Unit, Unakoti District, Kamranga Bari, Kailashahar and during investigation, it was found that after the marriage of Ranabir Das, he did not maintain any physical and mental relationship with Chayanika Banik which was revealed from the seized diary maintained by deceased Chayanika Banik. It was further revealed that the relationship between Ranabir Das and Chayanika Banik was not so conducive and on several occasions, Chayanika Banik was driven out from her matrimonial home and on several occasions said Ranabir Das stood outside the house of his in-law and in one occasion said Ranabir Das informed his mother-in-law that he wanted to go for mutual divorce with Chayanika Banik and after Durga Puja in the year 2013, she was send back to her mother's house. Since from January, 2014 Smt. Chayanika Banik started residing at Agartala and joined her earlier job which she had left earlier. Chayanika Banik used to call her husband over phone but the accused Ranabir Das used to avoid her and also abused her using bad languages.