Judgement

L. MOHAPATRA, J. :- The Death Reference and Criminal Appeal arise out of the judgment and order dated 27-11-2007 passed by the learned Sessons Judge, Keonjhar in ST Case No. 15 of 2007. The accused-appellant has been convicted for commission of offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (in short 'I. P. C.') for committing murder of three persons namely, Gayadhar Ojha, Sailendra Swain and Jagadananda Mallik and has been sentenced to death for committing the said offence. He has further been convicted for commission of offence under Section 307, I.P.C. for attempting to commit murder of Banamati Khatua and Dinakrushna Das. The appellant having been sentenced to death for commission of offence under Section 302, I. P. C., no separate sentence was awarded for his conviction under Section 307 of the said Code.

2. As it appears from the record, on 23-7-2006 at about 7.30 p.m. the Officer-in-charge of Ramachandrapur Police Station (P. W. 14) received a telephonic message that one Gayadhar Ojha has been killed by the accused-appellant. Entering such information in the station diary, he immediately rushed to village Alati where the incident took place. At 8 p.m. the informant Narayan Swain (P. W. 4) reported orally about the incident. On the date of occurrence at 6.30 p.m. he was informed by his co-villager Gobardhan Maharana that the accused-appellant was assaulting his elder brother Sailendra Swain by one Kata dragging him to his house (house of the accused) and the informant immediately reached the house of the accused-appellant with Tima Ojha and learnt that the accused-appellant was running towards Belasundari with one Kata. Thereafter, the informant and the said Tima Ojha ran towards the house of Padmanav Swain at Belasundari and learnt that the accused-appellant had severely injured Jagadananda Mallik and Banu Khatua by kata, who have been shifted for treatment and after assaulting the aforesaid two injured, accused-appellant ran to his village. They, while proceeding to the village, got information that the appellant at 7.30 p.m. evening had killed Gayadhar Ojha near Niranjan Sahu's shop and also assaulted Dinakrushna Das near Sanantan Swain's shop. In the meantime, Gobardhan Maharana, who had initially informed the informant about assault on his brother, brought a message that the brother of the informant has died. The said report was reduced to writing under Ext. 1 and investigation was taken up. On completion of investigation, chargesheet was submitted for commission of offences under Sections 302 and 307, I. P. C.

3. The prosecution examined as many as fourteen witnesses to bring home the charge and three witnesses were examined on behalf of the defence. The plea of the accused-appellant was complete denial of the prosecution allegations.

4. Out of fourteen witnesses examined by the prosecution, P. W. 1 is the informant, Narayan Swain, who had seen the appellant dragging the deceased Jagadananda Mallick and also saw Banu Khatua with injuries and heard from Banu Khatua about the assault by the accused-appellant on him and deceased Jagadananda Mallick. He has also witnessed the assault on the deceased Gayadhar Ojha. P. W. 2 is a witness to the assault on injured Dinakrushna Das (P. W. 3). P. W. 3 is the injured himself and P. W. 5 witnessed the assault on Dinakrushna Das and is a seizure witness. P. W. 6 Gobardhan Moharana had witnessed the accused appellant dragging Sailendra Swain to his house and P. W. 7 is a witness to the assault on the deceased Gayadhar Ojha. P. W. 9 is a witness to the assault on injured Banu Khatua. P. W. 10 is also a witness to the assault on injured Banu Khatua and deceased Jagadananda Mallick. P. W. 11 is the injured Banamali Khatua and P. W. 8 is the doctor, who conducted autopsy on the dead bodies of three deceased. P. Ws. 12 and 13 are two doctors, who examined both the injured persons.

5. On the basis of version of the eyewitnesses, medical evidence and the injured witnesses, the