CUTTACK: The HC on Monday ordered the immediate release of a man behind the bars for almost 14 years for killing his friend during a quarrel. It issued the direction after ruling that it was a clear case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The incident had occurred at Talapada under the Daitari police station limits in Keonjhar district on September 24, 2007. Ranjan Juanga was arrested on October 1 the same year. He has been in jail since then.
The court of sessions judge, Keonjhar, had sentenced Ranjan to imprisonment for life after convicting him in the case for homicide amounting to murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code on June 30, 2009.
Faced with trial over the plea of false implication, Ranjan had challenged the trial court verdict in the HC in the same year. The criminal appeal was pending all these years until the HC allowed it on Monday.
The two-judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice B P Routray said, “The occurrence had taken place in the course of quarrel between the appellant (Ranjan Juanga) and the deceased. The fist blows dealt by the appellant in the course of quarrel and which caused the deceased to fall on the hard surface (causing fatal head injury) was without premeditation and without any undue advantage taken by the appellant.”
The quarrel appears to be a sudden one and nothing is there on record to show any cruel or unusual action on the part of the appellant. Thus, in our considered opinion the culpable action of the appellant was without any intention to cause death, which attracts the punishment under Section 304 of the IPC and not Section 302, the bench ruled while setting aside the trial court judgment.
“The appellant has been in custody since October 1, 2007. In other words, he has already undergone almost 14 years of imprisonment. In view of the above discussion, the sentence is modified to the period of imprisonment already undergone by the appellant,” the bench said while directing for his immediate release, if his detention is not required in any other case.
