The judgment establishes the principle that circumstantial evidence, including the last seen theory and seizure of incriminating articles, can be sufficient to prove guilt in a murder case.

JUDGMENT :

1. A shocking incident of murder of two innocent school going children is the matter of trial in Sessions Case No. 22 of 2000 (Sessions Case No. 273 of 1991) and Sessions Case No. 23 of 2000 (Sessions Case No. 274 of 1991) in the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Jeypore. Two accused persons namely Rama Krushna alias Jeeban Kumar Padhiari and Manoj Kumar Padhi were charge-sheeted. Jeeban being absconding, trial of the case was split up and in the above noted Sessions Cases, Manoj faced the trial. On analysis of the circumstantial evidence, Learned Addl. Sessions Judge held that both the deceased children suffered homicidal death and accused Manoj is guilty of the charge under Sections 364/302/34, Indian Penal Code Accordingly, the accused-Appellant was sentenced to imprisonment for life together with fine of Rs. 5,000/- for the offence u/s 302/34, Indian Penal Code and rigorous imprisonment for seven years and to pay fine of Rs. 1,000/- for the offence u/s 364/34, Indian Penal Code that order of conviction and sentence is under challenge before us.

2. As we find from the lower Court records, Aditya (one of the deceased) is the grandson of Gopa Sundar Padhiary. Said Gopa Sundar had two wives. Nrusingha Nanda Padhiary, father of Aditya was his (Gopa Sundar's) son through the first wife and accused Rama Krushna alias Jeeban was his son through the second wife. As alleged by the prosecution, accused Jeeban being addicted to all bad habits, was a wayward person. Being annoyed with his irresponsibility, misconduct and the wayward life, Gopasundar had declared to bequeath all his properties in favour of Aditya. Motive of Jeeban was formulated therefrom to eliminate Aditya. Accused Manoj is a cousin of Jeeban and Nrusingha Nanda. Accused Jeeban and Manoj hatched the conspiracy to kill Aditya.

3. Deceased Sandeep (the other deceased) is the son of one Ghanashyam Sharma, who is a family friend of Gopa Sundar Padhiary and he was supporting Nrusingha Nanda, father of deceased Aditya. By the date of occurrence, deceased Aditya and Sandeep were residential students in Sunabeda Public School and they were residing in the hostel of that public school.

4. According to the case of the prosecution, on 16.04.1991 between 2 to 2.30 P.M., Appellant brought the two deceased Aditya and Sandeep from the hostel premises and took them to Manorama Lodge behind the Bus-stand at Jeypore. He occupied a room in a fictitious name i.e. as Sekhar Nag of Malkangiri. On that date, accused Jeevan also occupied a room in Shanti lodge. In the night, he left the lodge with the boys one after the other in a gap of half to one hour. Thereafter, the dead bodies lying at two different spots were discovered on the following day morning by the local public and that is how two First Information Reports, Exts. 44 and 38 were registered and investigation was undertaken. In course of investigation, it was found that this accused and accused Jeeban in a planned manner committed the crime after bringing the children from the school premises. In course of investigation, several incriminating materials were recovered and the Trial Court has taken into consideration such fact, only against accused-Appellant Manoj, because the co-accused absconded during trial. Though two P.S. cases, two G.R. cases and two Sessions Cases as noted above were registered but both the occurrence being in furtherance of the same conspiracy, a joint trial was taken up.

5. Accused-Appellant took the plea of denial and false accusation.

6. To substantiate the charge, prosecution examined as many as 42 witnesses and relied on series of documents marked Exts. 1 to 51 besides the material objects, such as the weapons of offence, the wearing apparels of the deceased and the accused persons and the photographs of the children, both positive and negative. Such material objects were marked M.O.I to M.O.XVIII. The accused examined one witnesses i.e. D.W. 1 Minaketan Dalai to say that nobody named Karna Sagar