Cuttack, May 5: Journalist Parsuram Satpathy was murdered at Balangir in 1974. Forty years later, justice has been delivered with Orissa High Court setting aside a trial court order and holding Dhobai Podh, Prasanna Kumar Pal and Artatrana Singh Deo guilty of the crime.

Sessions judge, Balangir-Kalahandi, had acquitted all nine persons accused in the murder case on June 30, 1980. But, the high court on Monday set aside the order and sentenced three of the surviving accused persons to imprisonment for life.

Appalled at the delay in deciding the case, the division bench of Justice Vinod Prasad and Justice S.K. Sahoo yesterday observed: "...there has been flagrant miscarriage of justice."

Satpathy, was killed after a jeep had dashed against the cycle on which he was riding on Dhobapara road at Balangir town on November 29, 1974.

A case was filed and sessions judge, Balangir-Kalahandi, acquitted all nine persons accused in the murder case on June 30, 1980.

Unhappy with the verdict, Parsuram's brother Hareram Satpathy moved the high court for permission to appeal against the trial court's acquittal order. However, the application was dismissed at the stage of admission on January 12, 1982.

On December 2, 1983, the Supreme Court took up Hareram's petition and directed Orissa High Court to hear the appeal on merits and dispose of it in accordance with law. Subsequently, the high court had registered Hareram's appeal in 1984.

As six of the accused persons had died by then, the criminal appeal had survived only in respect of the rest three persons.

Setting aside the trial court's acquittal order, the high court judges observed: "We are satisfied that there has been flagrant miscarriage of justice by pronouncing the order of acquittal... compelling reasons are there to interfere with the conclusions arrived by the trial court and, therefore, in order to prevent miscarriage of justice, the finding of acquittal should be disturbed."

The court was of the view that the conclusions arrived at by the trial court "are not possible and such conclusions are perverse, against the weight of evidence, quite unreasonable, palpably wrong, and manifestly erroneous and suffers from misreading of evidence".

"Prosecution has successfully brought home their guilt without any doubt and learned trial judge not only erred but also misread the evidence and gave undue benefit to the accused persons while acquitting them and, therefore, in our view, the impugned judgment of acquittal of Dhobai Podh, Prasanna Kumar Pal and Artatrana Singh Deo deserves to be set aside and they are found guilty of the offence under Section 302 of the IPC (murder)," Justice Prasad and Justice Sahoo further observed in a 76-page order.

Adverting to the question of sentence, the order said: "It is indisputable that occurrence had occurred four decades ago. The respondents (three surviving accused persons) are septuagenarians. It is not one of the rarest of rare cases, which falls in the category to impose death penalty on the accused... as we are of the opinion that the minimum statutory possible sentence should be awarded... and, therefore, we hereby sentence each of the accused respondents - Dhobai Podh, Prasanna Kumar Pal and Artatrana Singh Deo - to the minimum possible sentence of life imprisonment with fine of Rs 5,000 and in default of payment to serve additional imprisonment of one year."

The three convicted are on bail by virtue of a high court order on February 6, 1985. "The bail bonds furnished by them are cancelled. They are directed to be arrested forthwith and lodged in jail to serve out the sentence awarded," the order said.