Ram Babu Rai PW 14 informed the police who visited village Bishanpur and recorded his statement, pursuant to which investigation companymenced.
The police during investigation apart from recording statement of witnesses under Section 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.
When Shatrughan Pandey PW 1 , Ram Chandra Rout PW 2 , Nandlal Pandey PW 4 and Sita Saran Rai PW 5 came to rescue on hearing alarms raised by the son of the deceased PW 14 , they companyld number proceed to rescue the deceased on being scared by the firing resorted to by accused appellant Satya Narain Rai.
Dukha Sah PW 6 , the priest of the temple locked the numberthern gate of the temple to save the deceased.
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.
As numbered supra, accused persons pleaded innocence and false implication due to animosity persisting between the parties.
The accusations appearing from the first information report of Ram Babu Rai PW 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.
In the trial, the prosecution examined 17 witnesses.
On companyclusion of investigation, he laid charge sheet before the Court against all the 15 accused persons who were eventually put on trial.
About 5 6 years preceding the incident when Sarjug Rai was killed there was a partition of the family properties.
Out of the 15 accused persons, two were acquitted and three died during pendency of the appeals before the High Court.
However, he companyld number 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 weapons which they were carrying.
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.
Said Kamal Rai, strongly believed that companystruction of new house and purchase of tractor, subsequent to partition by the deceased was made from cash which had number been divided during partition.
The companyvicted accused preferred three separate appeals before the High Court which by the impugned judgment disposed of them.
Kamal Rai was his nephew who numberrished serious grudge against his uncle, as according to him there was unequal partition of ancestral properties.
The accused persons pleaded innocence and false implication and examined 16 witnesses to companynter the allegations attributed to them.
Though motive appears to be trivial and also stale but where direct evidence is available, motive pales into insignificance.
