CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 1 of 16 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK CRA No. 58 of 2002 (From the judgment and order dated 28.02.2002 passed by learned Addl. District and Sessions Judge, Nuapada in Sessions Case No. 92/39 of 2000) CRA No. 58 of 2002 Bhoka Satnami and Anr. … Appellants -versus- State of Odisha … Respondent Advocates appeared in the case through hybrid mode: For Appellants : Mr. S. Mohapatra, Advocate For Respondent : Mr. P.S. Nayak, A.S.C. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CORAM: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE MANASH RANJAN PATHAK THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SASHIKANTA MISHRA Date of hearing- 31.03.2026 Date of Judgment-07.04.2026 Sashikanta Mishra,J. Appellants, Bhoka Satnami and Lokanath Satnami faced trial in Sessions Case No. 92/39 of 2000 in CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 2 of 16 the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge, Nuapada for committing the murder of one Jitaram Satnami. Both the appellants being convicted under Section 302/34 IPC were sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life vide judgment dated 28.02.2002 passed by the trial Court. Be it noted that during pendency of this appeal appellant No.1 Bhoka Satnami expired on 01.06.2015. Accordingly, by order dated 24.10.2025 passed earlier in this proceeding the appeal stood abated with regard to the said appellant No.1 Bhoka Satnami. 2. Prosecution case, briefly stated, is as follows: The deceased Jitaram Satnami had invited his father-in-law, Kumal Satnami to his village for the purpose of sowing paddy seeds on his land. Accordingly, on 27.06.2000, Kumal arrived at his son-in-law’s house and stayed for the night. On the next morning, at about 5 a.m., they went to village Pendraban by bus and arrived in the land locally called, Chakridoli at about 7 a.m. At that time, uncle of the deceased namely, Bhoka Satnami and his son CRA No. 58 of 2002 Lokanath Satnami (accused persons) were preparing to plough the land. On seeing these two, the accused persons unfastened the yoke from the plough. Then both of them came near the deceased and abused him. Bhoka assaulted the deceased by means of the yoke causing him to fall down. The yoke also broke into two pieces. Loknath picked up one of the broken pieces and assaulted the deceased. Both of them also tried to assault Kumal who ran away to the village. As a result of the assault, the deceased died at the spot. Kumal informed the matter to the Gramarakhi, Nidhiram Sindhu and went with him to Komna police station where he orally reported the incident which was reduced to writing by one Chaitanya Kumbhar. 3. On the basis of the said report, Komna P.S. Case No. 43 of 2000 was registered under Sections 302/34 of IPC and investigation was taken up. Upon completion of investigation, charge sheet was submitted against both the accused persons. 4. The accused persons took the plea of denial. CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 4 of 16 5. To prove its case, prosecution examined 12 witnesses and proved 24 documents. Besides, prosecution also proved 15 material objects. The defence on other hand, examined only one witness. 6. The trial Court, after analyzing the evidence on record found that there was prior enmity between the deceased and accused persons arising out of a civil dispute relating to the very same land. It was also held that the death of the deceased was caused by the injuries inflicted by means of the yoke. The evidence of the eye witness, P.W.1 as supported by the other witnesses was relied upon to hold both the accused persons guilty of the charge. Accordingly, both were convicted and sentenced as already stated hereinbefore. 7. Heard Mr. S. Mohapatra, learned counsel for the appellant, Lokanath Satnami and Mr. P.S. Nayak, learned AGA for the State. 8. Mr. Mohapatra assails the impugned judgment by arguing that the FIR is doubtful as the informant admitted CRA No. 58 of 2002 that he does not know Odia. There is no evidence that the contents were understood by him. He further submits that though the spot map shows the spot of occurrence lies to the east of village but as per P.W.2 the same is to the west, which creates doubt. There is no evidence of any altercation having taken place at the spot between the deceased and the accused persons. However, P.W.2 stated about the deceased being abused by the accused persons, which is not believable. As per P.W.11, injury No.2 was the cause of death, though P.W.1, who claims to be an eye witness did not say anything about assault on the chest. He further argues that no one specified the name of Lokanath Satnami. The eye witness (P.W.1) admits that he had fled away from the spot after seeing only one assault and therefore he is not competent to say about the details of the occurrence. Prosecution did not examine any of the neighbouring tenants. 9. Per contra, Mr. P.S. Nayak learned State counsel would submit that the FIR was read over and explained to CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 6 of 16 the informant by the scribe and the informant put his LTI after finding its contents to be correct. There is no evidence to show that the scribe did not understand Chhattisgarhi language. As regards the role of accused Lokanath, both P.W.1 and 2 clearly stated about him. In any case, both were charged also under Section 34 IPC. The yoke used in the assault was recovered from the house of the accused persons at the instance of accused Bhoka Satnami. Further, the civil dispute between the parties provides clear motive for the offence. 10. Before considering the merits of the rival contentions, we deem it proper to independently analyze the evidence. We find that P.W.1, the father-in-law of the deceased and the informant, is one of the eye witnesses to the occurrence. He corroborated the FIR story in material particulars. He was cross-examined at length but nothing came out thereby to discredit him. P.W.2 is the other eye witness. He corroborated the version of P.W.1 fully. Some contradictions have been pointed out but according to us, CRA No. 58 of 2002 the same are not material. P.W.3 is the Gramarakhi before whom P.W.1 related the incident immediately. Though he is not an eye witness yet his version is important for the reason that after hearing about the incident from P.W.1 he immediately rushed to the spot and found the deceased lying dead with bleeding injury. He then accompanied P.W.1 to the police station. P.W.4 is the Sarpanch of Pendraban G.P. whose version is similar to that of P.W.3. P.W. 7 and 8 have also supported the prosecution version though they are the immediate post-occurrence witnesses. It is proved from the evidence that the deceased was lying dead with bleeding injury on his person. P.W.9 being the widow of the deceased stated about the civil suit which was decreed in their favour by the learned Sub-Judge, Nuapada. P.W.11 is the autopsy surgeon who found eight injuries on the dead body of the deceased out of which injury no.2 was the fatal one. He clearly stated that the cause of death is pneumothorax as per injury No.2. P.W.12 is the I.O., who among other things, stated that while in CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 8 of 16 police custody accused Bhoka led him to his house where he had concealed the weapon of offence under a heap of firewood behind his house and as such, the I.O. recovered the two broken pieces of the yoke. Defence has also examined one witness to show that the land of the accused persons is not visible from the land of Sibaram Duria on whose land the occurrence, according to prosecution took place. 11. Having noted the evidence as above we shall now proceed to deal with grounds raised by the defence to question the correctness of the impugned judgment: 11.1. As regards the FIR (Exhibit-1), we find that there is an endorsement by the scribe, Chaitanya Kumbhar that he had scribed the contents as stated by the informant and had signed after the contents were read over to the informant who affixed his LTI. Learned counsel for the appellant has argued that the FIR is scribed in Odia but P.W.1 admitted that he does not know Odia and that he had stated in Chhattisgarhi language. The scribe CRA No. 58 of 2002 Chaitanya Kumbhar was not examined. Nevertheless, there is no reason to suppose that he was not conversant with Chhattisgarhi language. Otherwise, he not being an eye witness could not have scribed the FIR containing the details of occurrence. It is obvious that he must have been conversant with both Odia as well as Chhattisgarhi. The doubt expressed by the defence arises more out of presumption and speculation than any acceptable material and as such, it is not tenable. 11.2 Objection has been raised as regards the evidence relating to the actual spot. We have perused the spot map marked Exhibit-22. The village, Pendraban situates on the eastern side while the spot of occurrence marked-A situates to the western side. P.W.2 described the boundary of the case land and further stated that all land situate to the west of the village. This is entirely in line with the spot map and we find nothing to raise a doubt in this regard. CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 10 of 16 11.3 It is argued that the version of P.W.2 that the accused persons rushed towards the deceased abusing him has not been supported by P.W.1 who did not whisper a word of any abuse. Therefore, the version of P.W.2 should not be accepted. We find from the evidence of P.W.2 that accused, Bhoka untied his plough, brought out the yoke and rushed towards the deceased and the informant shouting ‘Sala, you have come to sow paddy in this field’. It is true that P.W.1 has not stated anything about any abuse by the accused persons. This according to us is a minor contradiction which does not have the effect of demolishing the prosecution case in its entirety given the clear evidence of the assault. It is well settled that minor improvements, exaggerations and embellishments are not to be used to discredit other clinching evidence of the occurrence, if available on record. Needless to mention, in the instant case, the positive testimonies of P.W.1 and 2 as regards the assault is good enough for the Court to accept. CRA No. 58 of 2002 11.4. Learned defence counsel has argued that no one has deposed specifically regarding any assault on the chest of the deceased which according to the autopsy surgeon P.W.11, was fatal. As already stated, the autopsy surgeon found 8 injuries on the dead body of which, injury No.2 being the fatal one was a contusion of size 2”x2” over the front side of the left chest, one inch below the nipple. Since defence has not disputed the opinion of P.W.11 that injury no.2 had caused the death we are not inclined to go into it in detail. We find that according to P.W.1, Bhoka first dealt a blow with the yoke on the head of the deceased. As a result, the yoke itself was broken into two pieces. Accused Lokanath then dealt a blow with the broken part on the right leg. As a result, the deceased fell down on the ground and then both the accused persons assaulted him on his body. Thus, from the evidence it can be easily discerned that the deceased was assaulted on different parts of his body including his head. We fail to understand as to how non-specification of the assault on the chest improves the CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 12 of 16 defence case. P.W.1 being a rustic villager generally described about the assault which is consistent with number of injuries found on the dead body of the deceased at the time of PM examination. We therefore no find no substance in the ground raised. 11.5. It is argued that both P.W. 1 and 2 stated that they fled away from the spot after witnessing only one assault and therefore they cannot be treated as eye witnesses. We do not agree because both of them have given out the entire sequence of the assault i.e. first, on the head and then, on different parts of the body. Obviously, the assault would have taken place within a very short period of time and therefore, before leaving the spot both P.W.1 and 2 would have clearly seen the entirety of it. 11.6. The argument that no one stated the name of Lokanath Satnami specifically is also not acceptable as on bare reading of the evidence of P.W.1 and 2, it can be seen that both of them first identified both the accused persons standing in the dock and then described the occurrence by CRA No. 58 of 2002 stating that ‘both the accused persons’ assaulted the deceased. Even otherwise, specific overt act has been attributed to accused Lokanath by P.W.1 inasmuch as, first, he stated about the assault by Lokanath on the right leg of the deceased and subsequently on different parts of his body after the deceased had fallen to the ground. 12. We, therefore, find that none of the grounds raised by the defence to question the correctness of the finding rendered by the trial Court are valid enough to persuade us to take a different view. 13. It is alternatively argued that even accepting the prosecution case fully, it would still not be a case of murder but culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Learned State counsel submits that prior enmity being proved followed by assault there can be no other conclusion than that it was a case of murder. 14. We have given our anxious consideration to the contentions raised in this regard. There seems to be no dispute that there was civil dispute between the parties. A CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 14 of 16 suit had been filed for partition which was decreed in favour of the deceased. When the deceased along with his father-in-law came to the disputed land to sow paddy seeds, the accused persons, who were ploughing the lands assaulted the deceased upon seeing him. Therefore, notwithstanding prior dispute, there was no evidence of any pre-meditation or preparation. Only when the deceased and his father-in-law arrived at the paddy field, the accused persons assaulted him. This was obviously a fallout of the previous dispute between them relating to the land. The accused persons must have been smarting from the defeat in the litigation. Therefore, upon seeing the deceased and his father-in-law on the disputed land it was natural that they would have been further angered. The presence of the deceased with the intent of sowing seeds on the same land clearly acted as an act of provocation given the background of the disputes. Both of them used the yoke which was already tied to the plough. This is a significant aspect of the matter as it shows that they were CRA No. 58 of 2002 not armed with any weapon nor did they bring any other weapon to assault. It only shows that both of them were seized by sudden anger and therefore committed the assault. In the absence of any pre-meditation, it is difficult to hold that the assault was actuated with a definite intention to do away of the life of the deceased though they must be held to have had the knowledge that the assault would either cause death or cause such bodily injury as was likely to cause death. 15. In our considered opinion therefore, the case would fall under exception (i) and (iv) of Section 299 IPC and therefore, punishable under Section 304 Part-II of IPC. We are further of the view that given the fact that the occurrence took place 26 years ago, ends of justice would be best served by sentencing the accused to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment. 16. In the result, the appeal is allowed in part. The impugned judgment is modified by substituting the conviction for murder by conviction for culpable homicide CRA No. 58 of 2002 Page 16 of 16 not amounting to murder punishable under Section 304 Part II of IPC. Consequently, the sentence of life imprisonment is modified to sentence of 7 years of RI with the usual set-off. 17. The appellant, Lokanath Satnami being on bail, his bail bonds be cancelled and he be taken into custody forthwith for serving the remaining part of his sentence, if any. .......................................... Sashikanta Mishra, J. Manash Ranjan Pathak, J. I agree. …........................................ (Manash Ranjan Pathak,J. High Court of Orissa, Cuttack. Deepak