Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)

Shuvojit Bhaduri Alias Ishan vs The State Of West Bengal on 7 August, 2024

Author: Tirthankar Ghosh

Bench: Tirthankar Ghosh

                        IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
                        CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Present:

The Hon'ble Justice Tirthankar Ghosh

                               C.R.A. 701 of 2019

                          Shuvojit Bhaduri alias Ishan
                                     versus
                           The State of West Bengal


For the Appellant       : Mr. Subir Ganguly,
                          Mr. Pranab Palit,
                          Mr. Sumanta Ganguly.

For the State           : Mr. Ranabir Roy Chowdhury,
                          Mr. Sandip Chakraborty.


Heard On            :    29.07.2024 & 07.08.2024.

Judgement On        :    07-08-2024.



      Tirthankar Ghosh, J. :

The present appeal has been preferred against the judgment and order

of conviction dated 15.11.2019 and 20.11.2019 passed by the learned

Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court-II, Howrah in Sessions Trial No.

55 of 2014, wherein the learned Trial Court was pleased to convict the

appellant under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to

suffer Rigorous Imprisonment for seven (7) years and to pay fine of Rs.

10,000/- in default further Simple Imprisonment for six (6) months.

Malipanchghora Police Station case 137/13 dated 17.03.2013 under

Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code was initiated against the appellant

Shuvojit Bhaduri @ Ishan. On the basis of an information, addressed to the

Inspector in-charge, Malipanchghara Police Station, Howrah by Soumitra Paul

the case was registered for investigation. The allegations were to the effect that

the informant's daughter Late Sayantani Paul had a relation with Shuvojit

Bhaduri @ Ishan of Deoghar, Jharkhand for about two (2) years. During the

period of existing relationship the boy mentally pressurized his daughter and

always tried to squeeze money from her. The informant and his wife understood

the motive of the accused but considering the happiness of their daughter

accepted the same and never objected to such acts. In fact, at the time of tonsil

operation of the said accused the informant had to spend Rs. 50,000/- and on

different occasion, he would demand some money or in the alternative

threatened to snap the relationship with his daughter. He also took a sum of

Rs. 75,000/- for purchasing Motor Cycle form the informant's wife who was

forced to pay the money. On 11.03.2013 the informant's daughter had quarrel

over telephone with the accused, consequently their daughter did not eat

anything and the informant apprehends that the accused must have

pressurized her daughter to transfer all the property in his name. On the

morning of 12.03.2013 they found their daughter committed suicide by hanging

herself and it was transparent to the informant that she was forced to commit

suicide by the accused and the same would reveal from the deceased's mobile

phone. The informant therefore, requested the Police authority to take action

against the accused.

On the basis of the aforesaid information as earlier stated Malipanchghara

Police Station case No. 137/13 dated 17.03.2013 was registered for

investigation under Section 306 of the IPC against the accused/appellant and

the case was endorsed to Sub-Inspector, Samar Kumar Dey (P.W.9) of the said

Police Station. The investigating officer in course of investigation visited the

place of occurrence, particularly the bedroom on 17.03.2013, prepared rough

sketch map with index, and recorded the statement of the witnesses arrested

the accused and effected seizures in respect of the relevant materials. On

conclusion of investigation he submitted charge-sheet against the FIR named

accused person under Section 306 of IPC.

The case was thereafter committed to the Court of Sessions and the

proceedings including the case records were transmitted to the Learned

Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court-II, Howrah. The learned Trial

Court on perusal of the materials available/collected by the investigating

agency by its order dated 03.07.2014 was pleased to frame charges under

Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, against the accused/appellant. The

contents of the charge was read over to the accused person to which he pleaded

not guilty and claimed to be tried.

The prosecution in order to prove its case relied upon 9 witnesses, which

included P.W.1, complainant, father of the deceased; P.W.2, Aparajita Paul

mother of the deceased; P.W.-3, Mita Dutta, Doctor who initially checked the

patient and suggested for post-mortem examination; P.W.4, Soumita

Mukherjee, colleague of P.W.2 and family friend; P.W.-5, Tanup Pakhira, Sub-

Inspector of Belur Police Station who conducted inquest; P.W.-6 Gita Rani

Ghosh mother of P.W.-2 and grandmother of the deceased; P.W.-7 Kajal Das,

Cook of the complainant's family; P.W.-8, Dr. Joydipta Chattopadhyay, Post

Mortem Doctor and P.W.-9, Samar Kumar Dey, Investigating Officer of the case.

PW.1 being father of the deceased deposed that his daughter was on

fasting due to 'Sibaratri Puja'. He met with his daughter lastly on 12.03.2013 at

about 11.30 pm and he found her to be totally exhausted. At the relevant point

of time she was a student of B. Tech of M.V.J. Engineering College, White Field,

Bangalore. She returned to her residence for about six months as she was non-

collegiate and did not get any chance for appearing in the examination. This

came to the knowledge of the family members in 2012 and as such when he

went for verification at Bangalore, he came to know that his daughter did not

attend her classes regularly. On enquiry, it came to his knowledge that the

accused Shuvojit Bhaduri and his daughter both were staying as paying guest

at a place known as 'Prasanti' at Bangalore.

On further examination-in-chief, the witness stated that since 2012 the

accused/appellant started to visit Bangalore frequently and his daughter used

to talk over phone at night for which hostel authority did not allow her

daughter to stay in the hostel. In September, 2012, the accused/appellant took

Rs.28,000/- from them for his education at IGNOU, however, after receipt of

such amount, he started staying at Bangalore permanently with his daughter.

In October, 2012, the accused/appellant Shuvojit Bhaduri became sick and his

daughter informed about his illness. The parents of Shuvojit Bhaduri did not

visit Bangalore and, finally, the mother of deceased had to bear all the

expenses of Shuvojit for his treatment. On reaching Bangalore, the

witness/P.W.2 found that the deceased was under complete influence of the

appellant/accused and was often tortured by him.

When the parents insisted the daughter to return back to Kolkata, the

accused influenced her to go to Madhupur to stay with him. The issue was

informed to the parents and uncle of the appellant. Thereafter a meeting was

held to settle the matter and decide for arranging marriage between Shuvojit

and the deceased. Subsequently Shuvojit started residing at Howrah and often

visited their house. In February 2012, a sum of Rs.75000/- was taken by the

appellant for purchasing motorcycle. Subsequently he came to know that his

deceased daughter got married with Shuvojit. The witness alleged that the

death of his daughter was abetted by the appellant as she was forced to

commit suicide pursuant to mental torture inflicted by the appellant.

PW-2, Aparajita Paul, is the mother of the deceased. She narrated the

incident in the same manner as PW-1 with additional information relating to

her academic qualification and details relating to how the payment was made

to the appellant for his education as well as for purchasing the motorcycle.

PW-3, Dr. Mita Dutta, is a Medical Officer associated with T.I. Jaiswal

Hospital. According to her, the deceased was brought by her father and she

informed Bally Police Station for bringing a dead patient and suggested for post

mortem examination.

PW-4, Somita Mukherjee, is a colleague of PW-2 who narrated the

incident as she heard from PW-2 regarding the relationship of the deceased

with the appellant.

PW-5, Tanup Pakhira, is SI of Police who investigated the UD Case No.

1/2013 dated 12.03.2013 and conducted inquest over the dead body of the

deceased Sayantani Pal in presence of witnesses. The inquest report is marked

as Exhibit-I.

PW-6, Gita Rani Ghosh, is the grandmother of the deceased who

narrated the incident in the same spirit as PW-1 and PW-2.

PW-7, Kajal Das, is the cook of family of the deceased. He narrated the

incident as he had seen in the morning on 12.03.2013.

PW-8, Dr. Joydipto Chattopadhyay, is the post mortem doctor who

opined that the death was effect of hanging as has been noted in the post

mortem report.

PW-9, Samar Kumar Dey, is the Investigating Officer of the case. The

Investigating Officer has given detail regarding chronology of events in carrying

out the investigation, starting from the case being entrusted to him which

included the formal FIR, the preparation of the rough sketch map with index,

the seizure list which was prepared and signed by him and the mobile phone

which was seized in course of investigation being marked as Mat. Ext. I. In his

cross examination, the witness admitted regarding the treatment of the victim

at 'Nirikshan Kendra'. The documents relating to the same were marked as

Exhibit 'A'. There were contradictions which were answered in cross

examination by the Investigating Officer of the case which will be dealt with in

the latter part of the judgement.

Mr. Subir Ganguly, learned advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant

drew the attention of the court in respect of the improvements made by the

witnesses while deposing in Court, particularly certain facts which were

narrated for the first time by the witnesses in court and pointed out that the

FIR was registered after five days of the incident and there was no complaint by

the family members when the inquest was held.

According to the learned advocate the Investigating Officer did not find

any material to the effect that there were any torture inflicted upon the

deceased at the instance of the appellant which would attract the provisions of

Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code.

Additionally the medical documents being Exhibit 'A' which was tendered

by the defence to the Investigating Officer of the case would reflect that the

deceased was suffering from mental challenges and she was under treatment in

a particular institute in the year 2009.

Drawing the attention of the court to the list of documents relied upon by

the prosecution it was submitted that the call detail records (CDR) were not

even admitted in evidence by the learned trial court, however the Investigating

Officer in his oral deposition tried to establish the relationship on the

foundation of such call detail records (CDR) which were not obtained by

adhering to the provisions of law.

The appellant also questioned regarding any material supporting the

ownership of the mobile phone which was seized and marked as Mat Ext -I.

The emphasis was laid on the factum that the learned trial court

unnecessarily attached importance to the embellished version of P.W.2- the

mother of the deceased and P.W.7 - the cook, who was attached to the family of

the deceased and arrived at the finding of guilt.

In order to fortify his argument on different issues, learned advocate for

the appellant, has relied upon the following judgments:

S.S. Chheena -v- Vijay Kumar Mahajan ,(2010) 12 SCC 190; State of

W.B. -v.- Orilal Jaiswal, (1994) 1 SCC 73; Amalendu Pal -v- State of W.B.

(2010) 1 SCC 707; State of W.B. -v- Indrajit Kundu, (2019) 10 SCC 188; Madan

Mohan Singh -v- State of Gujarat (2010) 8 SCC 628 and Bechuram Bag -v-

State of WB, (2023) SCC OnLine Cal 419.

Mr. Ranabir Roy Chowdhury, learned advocate for the State, has opposed

the contentions advanced on behalf of the appellant and submitted that the

existence of the relationship between the appellant Shuvojit Bhaduri and the

deceased Sayantani Paul is established as the same has been deposed

consistently by majority of the witnesses. It has also been consistently stated by

the witnesses that both of them were living together at Bangalore and mental

torture was also inflicted upon the deceased at the instance of the appellant.

To that extent, learned advocate drew the attention of the court to the

evidence of the P.W.2 - the mother of the deceased, who deposed that at the

time when Shuvojit/the appellant fell ill, he was treated at Manipal Hospital

and none of the relations of Shuvojit/appellant had been to the Bangalore and

it was P.W.2 who had been to Bangalore to bear the expenses. However, the

behavior of the appellant was such that he did not want her/P.W.2 to stay at

his residence at Bangalore, and, as such, she/P.W.2 had to stay at a nearby

Hotel.

Additionally, it has been stated that the parents being the P.W.1 and

P.W.2 became so disturbed not only because of the relationship but also of the

mental pressure being inflicted by the accused/appellant upon the victim, who

was abusive and asked her to take rebirth for marrying him. Such abusive

words created mental trauma which was in addition to the ploy of extracting

money of Rs.28,000/- for completing the course at IGNOU and also the sum of

Rs. 75,000/- for purchasing a motor cycle.

Thus, according to the State, there are overwhelming materials, which

would reflect that there were continuous mental pressure created upon the

deceased and in close proximity of time of her committing suicide there are

evidences to show that there were communications between the deceased and

the appellant.

Thus, on behalf of the State, it has been submitted that the order of

conviction and sentence do not call for any interference, as such, the appeal

may be dismissed.

I have considered the submissions advanced by the learned advocates

appearing for the appellant and the State and on appreciation of the oral and

documentary evidence available before this Court, I am of the view that there

are certain issues which require detail consideration. The first of such issue

relates to the document being Exhibit-I which is the inquest report. The said

document is admitted in evidence and marked as exhibit through PW-5, Tanup

Pakhira who conducted the inquest. Serial No.8 which refers to 'opinion of

witnesses as to cause of death' reads as follows :

"The died girl suicide on hanging due to loneliness and mental depression for out side from home due to study as per statement of the died girl's father, elder father and other members of family."

So at the time of inquest, the representation which was made before the

Investigating Officer by PW-1 is that the deceased committed suicide due to

loneliness and mental depression for studying at a different place.

The parents being PW-1 and PW-2 also suppressed the mental health

condition during the investigation as well as in court and improved their

version in order to satisfy the requirements of ingredients for establishing the

offence against the appellant. The Investigating Officer of the case knowing

fully well that the deceased was suffering from mental challenges did not try to

investigate on the issue relating to any motive/intention or mental stability of

the deceased believed the cause of death and in a routine manner submitted

the charge-sheet.

Exhibit-A which has been admitted in evidence during the course of

cross-examination of the Investigating Officer of the case relates to a document

of Nirikshan Kendra, wherein the doctor opined regarding the behaviour of the

deceased at the time of admission on 18.12.2009 in the said institute, which

reflects that - "1. Aggressive and sometimes getting violent; 2. Does not want to

stay with parents and 3. Very suspicious about any food and liquid". In the

discharge certificate which is a part of the said series of documents, it has been

recorded by the doctor relating to complaints with regard to the deceased as

follows : "1. Stealing Money (16000/-); 2. Restless; 3. Agitation; 4. Abusive

Language; 5. Suicidal threat; 6. Violent Outburst; 7. Sleep and 8. Escaped from

home for 3 days."

In fact, there is an element of corroboration in the treatment sheets of

Exhibit-A and the opinion of the witnesses as cited in the inquest report being

Exhibit-I.

The Investigating Officer admitted that during investigation he found the

victim was under treatment at 'Nirikshan Kendra' under Dr. Abhoy Paul, in

spite of the same, the Investigating Officer did not rely upon such documents or

conducted any investigation with regard to the said findings or even did not

examine the doctor who treated the deceased. Rather the Investigating Officer

led much stress over the scripted statements of the parents who in order to

satisfy their grudge against the appellant implicated him in the present case.

In fact there were embellishments in the statement of PW-2 and PW-7 which

will be worth quoting. The relevant portions of the statements of PW-2 and PW-

7 are as follows:-

"PW-2 did not state to me that the accused used to threaten her husband and created pressure upon him so that they could not stay in the flat. PW-2 did not state to me that the uncle of the accused was intimated with all the facts. PW-2 did not state to me that Subhojit created constant pressure to send the victim to Modhupur. PW-2 did not state to me that accused received employment at Shyambazar and created pressure day by day over telephone. PW-2 did not state to me that the victim told them to settle the dispute with the accused. PW-2 did not state to me that after the victim returned to Howrah the dispute continued. PW-2 did not state to me that the accused never wanted that the relationship between the victim and her mother be cordial. PW-2 did not state to me specifically that in the month of January, 2013 she bought a 'scooty' for the accused. PW-2 did not state to me that there was dissatisfaction over transferring of property in the name of the accused. PW-2 did not state to me that tears broke into the eyes of the victim but the accused could not be contacted as the phone was switched off. PW-2 did not state to me that repeatedly my daughter used to tell us to have her rebirth to settle the dispute. PW-2 did not state to me that her husband and she tried to mitigate the situation but she refused to accept food and she was deeply hurt

by such provocation and in the late night she committed suicide by hanging herself. PW-2 did not state to me that on 11-03-2013 the victim had no chance to meet Subhojit and in the late night she talked to him over phone. Apart from PW-7, no other witness stated that PW- 7 was a cook in the house of the victim. PW-7 did not state to me that in the afternoon of 12.3.13 there was an altercation between the victim and Ishan involving money mater and for getting 'prasad'."

Having considered the aforesaid material discrepancies available, the

embellishments and non-consideration of the medical reports, I am of the view

that on the evidence available before this court it would not be safe to arrive at

a finding that the appellant was solely responsible for the deceased committing

suicide.

Accordingly, the order of conviction and sentence passed by the learned

Additional Sessions Judge, FTC-II, Howrah in connection with Sessions Trial

No. 55 of 2015 arising out of the Malipanchghora P.S. Case No. 137 of 2013

dated 17-03-2013 is hereby set aside. The appellant is acquitted of the charges.

As the appellant is on bail, he may be discharged from the bail bonds.

With the aforesaid observations, CRA 701 of 2019 is allowed.

Pending application, if any, is consequently disposed of.