This was a very peculiar case, called State of Orissa v. Ram Bahadur Thapa (1959). J.B. Chatterjee of the Chatterjee Bros. firm in Calcutta employed Ram Bahadur Thapa as a servant. They had gone to Rasgovindpur,a village in Orissa’s Balasore district, to buy scrap from an abandoned airport outside of town. The local people considered that area haunted and the same was made known to the visitors. As they drove to the aerodrome late at night, they noticed a flickering light within the premises that seemed to move because of the strong winds.

Thapa leapt into action, brandishing his khukri in the direction of the ‘ghosts.’ They turned out to be indigenous Adivasi ladies with a hurricane light who had congregated under a mahua tree to gather flowers. Thapa injured two women and killed another and thus was charged with Section 302 (murder), Section 326 (grievous hurt with dangerous weapons) and Section 324 (hurt with dangerous weapons) of the Penal Code. The Sessions Judge held that the accused committed the acts under a bona fide mistake of fact, thinking that he was attacking ghosts and not human being and hence acquitted him relying on Section 79, which talks about acts justified by law or acts which under a mistake of fact is thought to be justified by law. The petitioners challenged this through an appeal to the Supreme Court saying that through extra care and caution, this event could have been averted. But the court dismissed these arguments and said that Ram Bahadur Thapa had to be accorded the protection of Section 79.

Where did the women gather?