The essential ingredients for conviction under Section 307 IPC were not met in light of insufficient evidence regarding the accused's intent, leading to a downgrade of conviction to Section 324 IPC.

JUDGMENT :

CHAITALI CHATTERJEE DAS, J.

1. This instant criminal appeal against the judgement and order dated 23.9.2015 passed by learned Additional District and Session Judge, Ranaghat, District Nadia in connection with Sessions Trial number 7(11) of 2005 arising out of Shantipur Police Station no. 235 of 2004 dated July 20, 2004, wherein the accused persons/appellants were found guilty of the offence under Section 307 /34 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for five years with fine of Rs.5000 each and further R.I. for six months in default of payment of fine.

Prosecution case

2. Bereft of any details the prosecution case is that on1st-2nd of July last year at about 1 A.M. the husband of the de-facto complainant while dealing with dying thread at home after having dinner, the neighbouring youth, Shambhu Dhar call him from the house and took him to a narrow Lane at Haridas Roy Road, where the accused persons named in the F.I.R attacked him with Dao and also injured him at many places as a result, he suffered serious injuries and was taken to Shakti Nagar Hospital. The de-facto complainant lodged the complaint before the Shantipur P.S against 3 accused persons on April 6, 2009 on the basis of which Shantipur P.S case no. 235/04 dated July 20, 2004 started under Section 326 /307/34 I.P.C.

3. After completion of investigation, Charge sheet was submitted against all the three accused persons under the same Sections and the matter being exclusively triable by the sessions, the case was transferred to the Learned Court of Additional District and Sessions Judge, Ranaghat for trial after commitment where the charges were framed by the Learned Court under Section 307 /34 IPC , which were read over and explained to all the accused persons to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. Hence, the trial commenced.

4. The learned Court on considering the evidences adduced by the prosecution witnesses and after hearing the submissions advanced before the learned court, both by the prosecution as well as the defence counsel passed the order of conviction against all the accused persons. Being aggrieved thereby this appeal has been filed by all the three accused persons.

5. They Learned Amicus Curie as appointed by this Court argued that the date of incident as alleged mentioned in the Formal F.I.R was on 20th July, 2004 and the date of receipt of the complaint was at 19.25 hours. The incident happened at about 1.00 hrs on 20 July 2004 as found from the written complaint and it was received at the police station on 20.7.04 at 19:25 hours. Therefore primarily there appears to be a serious discrepancy in respect of the date of alleged incident as the incident occurred at the mid of night on 20th July, 04 the complaint ought to have been dated on the next day that is 21st of July 2004. It is further argued that the place of occurrence was mentioned at Hari Das Roy Road in the written complaint as well as in the formal F.I.R, but in the sketch map the P.O is shown at a different place. In the charge framed by the learned court also the place of occurrence mentioned at a different place at Shiv Chandrapal Lane which was never mentioned in the written complaint and another place of occurrence can be found to be at Manasa Tola . In this regard, the Learned Advocate relied upon a decision reputed in Ashraf Biswas versus the state of West Bengal , 2016, 0 Supreme (cal) 356, where it was held considering the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Syed Ibrahim versus state of Andhra Pradesh report