Bhawal case
Encyclopedia
The Bhawal case was an extended India
n court case about a possible impostor
who claimed to be the prince of Bhawal, who was presumed dead a decade earlier.
s ("princes") of the Bhawal Estate, a large zamindar
in Bengal
in modern-day Bangladesh
. He was one of three brothers who had inherited the estate from their father. The Bhawal Estate spread over 579 square miles (1,499.6 km²) and included villages with a population of around 500.000, many of them tenant farmers.
Ramendra Narayan Roy, Second kumar of Bhawal, spent most of his time hunting, in festivities and with women, having several mistresses. By 1905 he had contracted syphilis
. In 1909 he went to Darjeeling to seek treatment but died there on May 7 at the age of 25. The reported cause of death was biliary colic (gallstones). His body was cremated
in Darjeeling the next day and customary funerary rites were performed on the 8th of May.
Later there was much discussion of what had exactly happened on the 8th of May and what was the exact time of the cremation and exactly who had been cremated. Some witnesses testified that a sudden hailstorm had interrupted the cremation just before the pyre should have been lighted and the body might have disappeared when the mourners had sought shelter.
His young wife Bibhabati Debi 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.
, a religious ascetic
. Jyotirmayi, a sister of the kumars, made inquiries and gradually became convinced that her middle brother was somehow alive.
Around 1920-1921 a sannyasi appeared in Buckland Bund
in Dhaka covered in ashes. He sat on the street for four months and attracted attention because he was of unusually good physical condition. There were rumors that the second kumar had returned, even when the man said that he had renounced his family. Buddhu, the son of an elder sister of the brothers, visited him but was not yet convinced. Some of the locals arranged for the man's visit to Jaidebpur where he arrived on April 12, 1921 on an elephant.
Over the following couple of days, relatives became convinced that this man was the second kumar, but he returned to Dhaka by April 25. Relatives invited him back to Jaidebpur on April 30 when various relatives and tenants came to see him. When the crowd questioned him, he remembered the name of his wet nurse, a fact that was not public and they recognized him as the second kumar of Bhawal.
Dharamdas Naga who said that he had found him lying on the ground, wet from rain. The sadhu had become his guru
and he had spent the intervening years as a sannyasi.
The claimant said that he had wandered all around India without recollection of his past until his memory began to return and his guru told him to return home.
On May 29, 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. Managers of the Bhawal estate sent investigators to make inquiries about the real 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 June 3 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 impostor.
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 Roy agreed to represent him in court. Claimant's principal supporter was Suren Mukherjee.
Both opponents and supporters of the claimant published their own articles and pamphlets propagating their cause. Some of them included alleged witness reports of how group of sannyasis had rescued still-alive kumar from the funeral pyre, taken him away and healed him. Others compared the case with that of a historical impostor Pratachand and even the Tichborne case. Some writers wrote whole plays or stories to make their point about the case, some of them accusing Bibhabati and his brother of incestuous relations or conspiracy to poison the kumar.
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.
After the claimant moved to Calcutta in 1924, he also received recognition in local social circles. He joined the Bengal Landholders Association and became a director of Bengal Flotilla Service. He tried to use various official channels to argue his case until 1929, when he moved back to Dhaka and began to collect tenant's rents and tribute against his share of the 1/3 of the property.
. Amiya Nath Chaudhuri counseled the defendants, those represented by the Court of wards. The trial began on November 30, 1933.
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 kumar had really been able to barely read and write. Defense also claimed that the fact that Kumar had 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 were 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 color 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 witness
es and some of their comments 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 Debi, 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 Punjab
i sikh
from Lahore
. Das fell ill and had to be questioned outside the courthouse. The claimant's supporters insisted that this guru was a fraud. Both sides' closing arguments lasted for 6 weeks before the court adjourned on May 20, 1936.
Judge Pannabal Basu deliberated his final judgment for three months and on August 24, 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
.
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.
Three judges, Sir Leonard Costello
, Charu Chandra Biswas and Ronald Francis Lodge formed a special bench for the case. Both sides retained their former lawyers. The hearing began on November 14, 1938.
Appellants' side concentrated on what had really happened in Darjeeling, that there should be proof that kumar was not dead and who, if any, had been cremated. Respondents' side defended the judgment, stating the kumar's identity had been proved. Hearings concluded on August 14, 1939.
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
. On August 20, 1940, other judges decided that the judgment could not wait any longer and began to announce their judgment. Other judges had presented their view to Costello in writing, he had delivered his own judgment in writing from Britain and it remained enclosed until it was read in court.
Judge Biswas defended judge 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 found the favor of 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 found in favor of the defendants.
When judge Biswas read the judgment of Justice Costello's on August 29, 1940, it broke the tie. Costello criticized 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 November 25, after two months of deliberation, the court announced that Costello's view was valid and therefore the appeal was dismissed.
The Board of Revenue did not answer right away and A.N. Chaudburi withdrew from the case but Bibhabati Debi was not ready to give up. Developments of the war delayed further appeals until 1943, when lawyers for Bibhabati Debi filed appeal for a leave for 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, 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.
The Privy Council did grant the leave to appeal. Lord Thankerton, Lord Herbert du Parcq and Sir Chettur Madhavan Nair handled the case. The hearing lasted for 28 days. On July 30, 1946 they ruled in favour of the claimant and dismissed the appeal. Judgment was telegraphed to Calcutta the next day.
and died two days later. Funeral rites were performed on August 13, 1946. Bibhabati Debi later regarded this as a divinely ordained punishment for imposture. She later refused the inheritance( Rs 800000 ) coming from the estate.
In addition of the above, the photographs of the two were very similar. Their gait, voice and expression were also exactly similar. Fingerprinting was well established by the time the Sanyasi case occurred, but could not be used as there were no records of the Kumar's fingerprints from 1909 when he had left home. There is little doubt that if the science of fingerprinting had been possible or DNA profiling existed in that time, the case could have been solved in no time.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n court case about a possible impostor
Impostor
An impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but just as often for purposes of espionage or law enforcement....
who claimed to be the prince of Bhawal, who was presumed dead a decade earlier.
Apparent first death and cremation
Ramendra Narayan Roy was one of the kumarKumar
Kumār OR Kunwar is a title, a given name or a family name native to India.In many Indian languages, Kumar literally means prince or a young/unmarried male....
s ("princes") of the Bhawal Estate, a large zamindar
Zamindar
A Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...
in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
in modern-day Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. He was one of three brothers who had inherited the estate from their father. The Bhawal Estate spread over 579 square miles (1,499.6 km²) and included villages with a population of around 500.000, many of them tenant farmers.
Ramendra Narayan Roy, Second kumar of Bhawal, spent most of his time hunting, in festivities and with women, having several mistresses. By 1905 he had contracted syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
. In 1909 he went to Darjeeling to seek treatment but died there on May 7 at the age of 25. The reported cause of death was biliary colic (gallstones). His body was cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
in Darjeeling the next day and customary funerary rites were performed on the 8th of May.
Later there was much discussion of what had exactly happened on the 8th of May and what was the exact time of the cremation and exactly who had been cremated. Some witnesses testified that a sudden hailstorm had interrupted the cremation just before the pyre should have been lighted and the body might have disappeared when the mourners had sought shelter.
His young wife Bibhabati Debi moved to Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
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.
Rumours and return
Over the years there were rumours that Ramendra's body had not been successfully cremated, that the body had disappeared or that he had been seen alive. Relatives sent people to Bengal to investigate rumours that he had become a sanniyasiSannyasa
Sannyasa is the order of life of the renouncer within the Hindu scheme of āśramas, or life stages. It is considered the topmost and final stage of the ashram systems and is traditionally taken by men or women at or beyond the age of fifty years old or by young monks who wish to renounce worldly...
, a religious ascetic
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
. Jyotirmayi, a sister of the kumars, made inquiries and gradually became convinced that her middle brother was somehow alive.
Around 1920-1921 a sannyasi appeared in Buckland Bund
Buckland bund
Buckland Bund is a historically significant architectural creation situated by the Buriganga river bank of Old Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was first created by C.T. Buckland in 1864 who was the commissioner of Dhaka during that period....
in Dhaka covered in ashes. He sat on the street for four months and attracted attention because he was of unusually good physical condition. There were rumors that the second kumar had returned, even when the man said that he had renounced his family. Buddhu, the son of an elder sister of the brothers, visited him but was not yet convinced. Some of the locals arranged for the man's visit to Jaidebpur where he arrived on April 12, 1921 on an elephant.
Over the following couple of days, relatives became convinced that this man was the second kumar, but he returned to Dhaka by April 25. Relatives invited him back to Jaidebpur on April 30 when various relatives and tenants came to see him. When the crowd questioned him, he remembered the name of his wet nurse, a fact that was not public and they recognized him as the second kumar of Bhawal.
Tale of rescue
The man said that he had become ill in Darjeeling and forgot much of it. He had recovered in the jungle alongside the sadhuSadhu
In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...
Dharamdas Naga who said that he had found him lying on the ground, wet from rain. The sadhu had become his guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
and he had spent the intervening years as a sannyasi.
The claimant said that he had wandered all around India without recollection of his past until his memory began to return and his guru told him to return home.
Popular acceptance
There was considerable rural acceptance that the man was the Second Kumar of Bhawal. Many of his former tenants and relatives began to support him. On May 15 a large crowd gathered before the Jaidebhur Rajbari in Dhaka and announced in public that they believed that he was the returned Kumar. Kumar's widow Bibhabati refused to meet the claimant and regarded him as an impostor.On May 29, 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. Managers of the Bhawal estate sent investigators to make inquiries about the real 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 June 3 the Board of Revenue
Board of Revenue
The Board of Revenue was a Colonial British institution and part of the British Raj in India. It provided the crucial role of revenue management during the period when the British East India Company ruled.It was a creation of the East India Company in 1781.The Board of Revenue was formed to help...
announced in public that they had proof that the kumar's body had been cremated in Darjeeling and therefore the claimant was an impostor.
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 Roy agreed to represent him in court. Claimant's principal supporter was Suren Mukherjee.
Both opponents and supporters of the claimant published their own articles and pamphlets propagating their cause. Some of them included alleged witness reports of how group of sannyasis had rescued still-alive kumar from the funeral pyre, taken him away and healed him. Others compared the case with that of a historical impostor Pratachand and even the Tichborne case. Some writers wrote whole plays or stories to make their point about the case, some of them accusing Bibhabati and his brother of incestuous relations or conspiracy to poison the kumar.
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.
After the claimant moved to Calcutta in 1924, he also received recognition in local social circles. He joined the Bengal Landholders Association and became a director of Bengal Flotilla Service. He tried to use various official channels to argue his case until 1929, when he moved back to Dhaka and began to collect tenant's rents and tribute against his share of the 1/3 of the property.
First trial
On April 24, 1930, lawyers working for the claimant filed a suit against Bibhabati Debi and other landholders who were represented by the Court of Wards. District judge Alan Henderson assigned judge Pannabal Basu to the case. Bejoy Chandra Chatterjee served as counsel for the claimant, now a plaintiffPlaintiff
A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...
. Amiya Nath Chaudhuri counseled the defendants, those represented by the Court of wards. The trial began on November 30, 1933.
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 kumar had really been able to barely read and write. Defense also claimed that the fact that Kumar had 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 were 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 color 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 witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
es and some of their comments 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 Debi, 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 Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
i sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
from Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
. Das fell ill and had to be questioned outside the courthouse. The claimant's supporters insisted that this guru was a fraud. Both sides' closing arguments lasted for 6 weeks before the court adjourned on May 20, 1936.
Judge Pannabal Basu deliberated his final judgment for three months and on August 24, 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
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
.
Second trial
The claimant moved to the estate but the Board of Revenue did not release any funds to him. On October 5, 1936 the government filed an appealAppeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
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.
Three judges, Sir Leonard Costello
Leonard Costello
Leonard Wilfred James Costello was an English barrister, college lecturer, soldier and colonial judge who was also a Liberal Party politician.-Family and education:...
, Charu Chandra Biswas and Ronald Francis Lodge formed a special bench for the case. Both sides retained their former lawyers. The hearing began on November 14, 1938.
Appellants' side concentrated on what had really happened in Darjeeling, that there should be proof that kumar was not dead and who, if any, had been cremated. Respondents' side defended the judgment, stating the kumar's identity had been proved. Hearings concluded on August 14, 1939.
Judge Costello left for a holiday in Britain, intending to return in November to finish the case. In the meantime, World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
erupted in Europe and he was unable to return due to state of war
State of War
State of war may refer to:*a situation where two or more states are at war with each other, with or without a real armed conflict*State of War , a book by James Risen which makes numerous controversial allegations about Central Intelligence Agency activities*State of War , a real-time strategy...
. On August 20, 1940, other judges decided that the judgment could not wait any longer and began to announce their judgment. Other judges had presented their view to Costello in writing, he had delivered his own judgment in writing from Britain and it remained enclosed until it was read in court.
Judge Biswas defended judge 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 found the favor of 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 found in favor of the defendants.
When judge Biswas read the judgment of Justice Costello's on August 29, 1940, it broke the tie. Costello criticized 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 November 25, after two months of deliberation, the court announced that Costello's view was valid and therefore the appeal was dismissed.
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. Chaudburi withdrew from the case but Bibhabati Debi was not ready to give up. Developments of the war delayed further appeals until 1943, when lawyers for Bibhabati Debi filed appeal for a leave for 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, 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.
The Privy Council did grant the leave to appeal. Lord Thankerton, Lord Herbert du Parcq and Sir Chettur Madhavan Nair handled the case. The hearing lasted for 28 days. On July 30, 1946 they ruled in favour of the claimant and dismissed the appeal. Judgment was telegraphed to Calcutta the next day.
Aftermath
The same evening, when the claimant went to offer prayers, he suffered a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
and died two days later. Funeral rites were performed on August 13, 1946. Bibhabati Debi later regarded this as a divinely ordained punishment for imposture. She later refused the inheritance( Rs 800000 ) coming from the estate.
Forensic significance
This case has tremendous significance for students of forensic science, specifically for students of identification. It is interesting to go through the various similarities between the Kumar and the Bhawal Sanyasi. It gives an idea how various identification data can be used for identification of a person.| S.No | Identification data | Kumar Ramendra Narayan Roy (The second Kumar of Bhawal) | The Bhawal Sanyasi |
| 1 | Complexion | Pink and white | Pink and white |
|||
| 2 | Hair | Brownish | Brownish |
|||
| 3 | Hair form | Wavy | Wavy |
|||
| 4 | Moustache | Lighter than hair | Lighter than hair |
|||
| 5 | Eyes | Brownish | Brownish |
|||
| 6 | Lips | Twist on the right lower lip | Twist on the right lower lip |
|||
| 7 | Ears | A sharp angle at the rim | A sharp angle at the rim |
|||
| 8 | Lobes of ears | Not adherent to the cheeks and pierced | Not adherent to the cheeks and pierced |
|||
| 9 | Adam's apple | Prominent | Prominent |
|||
| 10 | The left upper first molar tooth | Broken | Broken |
|||
| 11 | Hands | Small | Small |
|||
| 12 | Index and middle fingers of the left hand | Less unequal than those of the right hand | Less unequal than those of the right hand |
|||
| 13 | A point of flesh in the right lower eyelid | Present | Present |
|||
| 14 | Feet | Scaly, size 6 for shoes | Scaly, size 6 for shoes |
|||
| 15 | Irregular scar on the top outer of the left ankle | Present | Present |
|||
| 16 | Syphilis | Present | Present (disputed) |
|||
| 17 | Syphilitic ulcers | Present | Present (disputed) |
|||
| 18 | Boil mark on the head and back | Present | Present |
|||
| 19 | Operation mark near the groin | Present | Present |
|||
| 20 | Tiger claw mark on the right arm | Present | Present |
|||
| 21 | A minute mole on the dorsum of the penis | Present | Present |
In addition of the above, the photographs of the two were very similar. Their gait, voice and expression were also exactly similar. Fingerprinting was well established by the time the Sanyasi case occurred, but could not be used as there were no records of the Kumar's fingerprints from 1909 when he had left home. There is little doubt that if the science of fingerprinting had been possible or DNA profiling existed in that time, the case could have been solved in no time.