Dead man tell many tales !

This is a case about a person who claimed to be the prince of Bhawal, presumed to be dead a decade earlier. Among many other cases in India, this seems to be an extended Indian Court case very popularly known as Bhawal Case. This case is treated as one of the most sensational cases as the plaintiff (here prince) came alive from his cremation after almost 10 years. A case, which is criminal in nature but there is no evidence as to who is the criminal. A case which is fought by the prince against his own family members to prove that he is not an imposter! A case which gives the prince again his one third share of the Bhawal estate. A case where the prince celebrates his final victory on his death day!!! Let me walk you down the lane of the case facts –

Grand Bhawal Estate and the Prince Charming:

The Bhawal Estate spread over 579 square miles and included villages with a population of around 500,000, many of them tenant farmers. In extent, income and prestige, Bhawal was one of the biggest and oldest estates in Eastern Bengal. The Bhawal family, which was of the Srotriya Brahmin caste traces its origin from the late seventeenth century. The second son Ramendra Narayan Roy was yet to take up the zamindari management when the famous incident of the Bhawal Case took place.

Ramendra Narayan Roy was one of the kumars (“prince”) of the Bhawal Estate, a large zamindari in Bengal in modern-day Bangladesh. He was one of three brothers who had inherited the estate from their father.

Death of the prince and his cremation:

The prince used to spend most of his time hunting, in festivities, and with women, having several mistresses. He was said to have contracted syphilis in 1905 owing to his lifestyle. In 1909 he went to Darjeeling to seek treatment, accompanied by his wife Bibhabati Devi, her brother Satyendranath Banerjee, and a large retinue, but was reported to have died there on 7^th May at the age of mere 25.

The reported cause of death was biliary colic (gallstones). His body was supposedly cremated in Darjeeling the next day and customary funerary rites were performed on 8^th May.

What exactly happened on 8^th May?

Some witnesses who had participated in the cremation ceremony had testified that a sudden hailstorm had interrupted the cremation just before the pyre should have been lighted. Due to this event, the mourners started getting displaced in search of shelter.

After the cremation got over, his young wife Bibhabati Devi moved to Dhaka to live with her brother Satyen Banerjee. Over the next ten years the other Bhawal Estate kumars also died and the colonial British Court of Wards took control of the estate on behalf of their widows.

Rumors and Return of the Prince as Sanyasi:

Nearly after ten years, in 1920 a sanyasi appeared in Dhaka covered in ashes. Owing to his unusually good physical stature, many people got attracted to him and surprisingly started identifying him as the Second Prince of Bhawal Estate – “Ramendra Narayan Roy”.

On questioning him, he claimed to have renounced his family.

After lot of pressure by the locals, the sanyasi finally disclosed openly that he was Ramendra Narayan Roy, the owner of one-third share of the Bhawal raj. His family, who came to identify him immediately dismissed the claim and declared that the sanyasi was an imposter. The family asked the government to protect it from this ‘naga sannasi’. Ramendra’s wife, who lived in Calcutta, also consistently refused to recognize him as her husband.

Sanyasi’s claim –

The sanyasi claimed that while in Darjeeling, he was poisoned and a cremation was attempted. But the people hired to cremate the raja left his body unattended and not cremated because a strong hailstorm had started raging at that time

A group of Naga sanyasis found him lying unconscious, took him to their home and nursed him back to recovery. He recovered, but had suffered memory loss, and wandered India for the next 10 years. While returning from Chittagong to Dhaka in 1920, he recovered his memory, and was instructed by his guru to return home.

Official Recording of Sanyasi’s claim:

There was a considerable rural acceptance that the man was the Second Kumar of Bhawal. Many of his former tenants and relatives began to support him. On 15^th May a large crowd gathered before the Jaidebpur Rajbari in Dhaka and announced in public that they believed that he was the returned Kumar.

However, Kumar’s widow Bibhabati refused to meet the claimant and regarded him as an impostor.

On 29^th May 1921, the claimant arrived in Dhaka in the Bhawal house with two lawyers to meet the district magistrate and collector J. H. Lindsay who recorded his claim.

The British colonial government and the Court of Wards were not enthusiastic. However, managers of the Bhawal estate sent investigators to make inquiries about the identity of the claimant and find witnesses to support their side of the story.

Two investigators went to Punjab to meet Dharamdas Naga, who identified the claimant as his pupil Mal Singh of Aujla, also known as Sundardas. On 3rd June, the Board of Revenue announced in public that they had proof that the kumar’s body had been cremated in Darjeeling and therefore the claimant was an imposter!

Despite this, the public and many tenants of the Bhawal estate continued to support the claimant. Many tenants paid their rents to the claimant, who used them to hire lawyers. Solicitor Ananda Chandra Nandi agreed to represent him in court.

The Board of Revenue claimed that the whole matter was a conspiracy organized by interested parties who wanted to use the estate for their own purposes. When they had found a suitable candidate, they had prepared him for the part of a returned kumar with the aid of kumar’s sisters. Many Indian witnesses also stated that the claimant could not speak Bengali well and he was mainly ignorant about the events of the kumar’s youth. One of them, Mukunda Guin, was stabbed to death in September 1921.

Criminal Case initiated against Bibhabati Devi and other landholders – 1930!

On 24 April 1930, lawyers working for the claimant, supported by the sisters and elder sister-in-law of the kumar, filed a declaratory suit in Dhaka claiming the name and property of Ramendra Narayan Ray against Bibhabati Devi and other landholders who were represented by the Court of Wards!

The trial began on 30 November 1933.

District judge Alan Henderson assigned judge Pannalal Bose to the case. Bejoy Chandra Chatterjee served as counsel for the claimant, now a plaintiff. Amiya Nath Chaudhuri counselled the defendants, those represented by the Court of wards.

First Trial:

In court the sanyasi declared that he became victim to a conspiracy hatched by his brother-in-law Satyendranath Banerjee, an unemployed graduate, who wanted to control his share of the estate through his childless sister. He further alleged that Satyendranath had bribed the family physician Ashutosh Dasgupta to state that the prince was suffering from syphilis, and was persuaded by the conspirators to go for treatment to Darjeeling, where they all lodged at a house called “Step Aside,” close to the funeral ground.

Arguments and counter- arguments:

• Lawyers working for the Court of Wards tried to prove that this barely literate man could not be of Brahmin caste, but those on the claimant’s side were able to prove that the kumar had actually been barely able to read and write.
• Defense also claimed that the allegation that Kumar had a mistress named Elokeshi was total fiction. When Elokeshi was summoned, she said that police had offered her money for not testifying.
• Defense also argued that kumar’s syphilis had advanced to the state of open sores when there was no sign of any syphilitic scars in the claimant’s body.
• The claimant spoke mainly Urdu, claiming that he had forgotten most of his Bengali during his travels.
• There was also an argument about the exact colour of kumar’s eyes.
• There were also claims that the body burned in the funeral pyre had been a substitute.

Both sides summoned hundreds of witnesses and some of their statements were contradictory.

Defense questioned kumar’s sister Jyotirmayi Debi, who supported the claimant and stated that the claimant had various family characteristics and that the claimant did speak Bengali.

The plaintiff’s side, in turn, closely questioned Bibhabati Devi, who denied she saw any resemblance between her dead husband and the claimant. Ananda Kumari, widow of one of the other kumars, claimed that the kumar had been able to speak English and write in Bengali, neither of which the claimant could do.

However, the letters that were presented as evidence of this were found to be forgeries!

In September 1935, the guru Dharamdas Naga arrived to testify in court through an interpreter and repeated that he recognized the claimant as his former disciple Sundardas, previously Mal Singh, who was a Punjabi Sikh from Lahore. The claimant’s supporters insisted that this guru was a fraud.

Each side took six weeks to present its closing arguments before the court adjourned on 20^th  May 1936. Judge Pannalal Basu deliberated his final judgment for three months and on 24^th  August 1936, after a very detailed explanation and with a large crowd waiting outside, he ruled in favor of the claimant. Afterwards he retired from the judiciary.

Appeal:

The claimant moved to take up residence at the estate but the Board of Revenue did not release any funds to him. On 5^th October 1936 the government filed an appeal against the judgment in the Calcutta High Court, again in the name of the wards of the Court of Wards. Chief justice of the High Court gave an order that all the evidence in the previous trial must be printed for the use of the appellate court. It amounted to 11,327 printed pages.

Appellants’ side concentrated on what had really happened in Darjeeling, arguing that there should be proof that kumar was not dead and proof of who, if anybody, had been cremated.

Respondents’ side defended the judgment, stating the kumar’s identity had been proved.

Judge Biswas defended judge Pannalal Basu’s conclusions in his long verdict and stated that the defendants had failed to prove that the Second Kumar had died. He charged that the defendants had tutored witnesses and produced fraudulent letters. He therefore favored the claimant.

Justice Lodge disbelieved the story of the rescue, criticized the amount of witnesses both sides had summoned, dismissed many details of the plaintiff’s evidence and accused the plaintiff’s side of pressuring and insulting the witnesses for the defense. He therefore favored the defendants.

Judge Costello left for a holiday in Britain, intending to return in November to finish the case. In the meantime, World War II erupted in Europe and he was unable to return due to state of war. In 1940, both these judges had presented their view to Costello in writing. Costello had delivered his own judgment in writing from Britain and it remained sealed until it was read in court.

When judge Biswas read the judgment of Justice Costello’s on 29 August 1940, it broke the tie. Costello criticised the Court of Wards for pressuring witnesses with irrelevant questions and withholding documents. He did not find sufficient reason to overturn the decision of the lower court. On 25^th November, after two months of deliberation, the court announced that Costello’s view was valid and therefore the appeal was dismissed.

Base on exhibits that were produced in support of sanyasi’s identity, including photos, paintings, marks on his body, letters, and statements of acquaintances, the judge finally passed his judgement identifying the sanyasi as Kumar Ramendranarayan Roy, co-sharer of the Bhawal raj.

Privy Council

The claimant was allowed to withdraw money from his share of the estate. He still left this share in the care of the Court of Wards until further developments. He also got married.

The Board of Revenue did not answer right away and A.N. Chaudhuri withdrew from the case but Bibhabati Devi was not ready to give up. Developments of the war delayed further appeals until 1943, when lawyers for Bibhabati Devi filed for a leave to appeal against the judgment of the High Court in the Privy Council in London.

Partially because of the bomb damage to the council chamber in the blitz during World War II, the Council moved to the House of Lords and the next hearing began there in 1945. D.N. Pritt worked for the claimant’s side and king’s counsel W.W. K. Page argued the case for the Court of Wards.

Judgement was delivered on July 30, 1946, affirming the order of the high court. The prince came out victorious!!!

Aftermath

The same evening, when the claimant went to offer prayers, he suffered a stroke and died two days later. Funeral rites were performed on 13^th August 1946. Bibhabati Devi later regarded this as a divinely ordained punishment for imposter. She later refused the inheritance (Rs. 800000) coming from the estate.

Forensic Significance

“A forensic study, conducted on the dead body of the sadhu confirmed that he was indeed the kumar.”

In the matter of the event being correctly portrayed and the judgement being taken right, this case is clearly an “Attempt to Murder” and criminal in nature. However, it is not identified yet who had attempted to murder the Prince. So let us now understand what comes under Attemt to Murder!

Legal Laws related to Attempt to Murder:

Section 307 in Indian Penal Code states that:

“Whoever does any act with such intention or knowledge, and under such circumstances that, if he by that act caused death, he would be guilty of murder, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine; and if hurt is caused to any person by such act, the offender shall be liable either to 1[imprisonment for life], or to such punishment as is hereinbefore mentioned. Attempts by life convicts.—2[When any person offending under this section is under sentence of 1[imprisonment for life], he may, if hurt is caused, be punished with death.]

Illustrations:

(a) A shoots at Z with intention to kill him, under such circumstances that, if death ensued. A would be guilty of murder. A is liable to punishment under this section.

(b) A, with the intention of causing the death of a child of tender years, exposes it in a desert place. A has committed the offence defined by this section, though the death of the child does not ensue.

(c) A, intending to murder Z, buys a gun and loads it. A has not yet committed the offence. A fires the gun at Z. He has committed the offence defined in this section, and if by such firing he wounds Z, he is liable to the punishment provided by the latter part of 3[the first paragraph of] this section.

(d) A, intending to murder Z by poison, purchases poison and mixes the same with food which remains in A’s keeping; A has not yet committed the offence defined in this section. A places the food on Z’s table or delivers it to Z’s servant to place it on Z’s table. A has committed the offence defined in this section.”

So can you help solve the puzzle for me and tell who might have attempted to murder the Prince?

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhawal_case

By,

Nibedita Shome