STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH Vs. RAVINDRA PRAKASH MITTAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is preferred by the State of U.P. on being aggrieved by the judgment dated 1 1-101977 rendered by the High Court of Allahabad in Criminal Appeal No. 2370 of 1972 whereby the High Court has allowed the appeal, preferred by the respondent/ accused, namely, Dr. Ravindra Prakash Mittal.

(2.) The Respondent took his trial on the allegations that on the intervening night of 11/12th October 1971 inside his house in Mohalla Moreganj Police Station Kotwali, Saharanpur committed the murder of his wife Smt. Kamlesh; burnt the dead body by sprinkling the kerosene oil and thereby caused the evidence of the offence of murder to disappear with an intention of screening himself from legal punishment. On the above allegations, he stood charged under two heads, that is under Ss. 302 and 201, IPC.

(3.) Adumberated in brief, the facts of the prosecution case can be summarised as follows: The respondent Dr. Ravindra Prakash Mittal aged about 29 years in 1971 was a' private medical practitioner at Saharanpur city. He married one Smt. Mithlesh, but the marriage was dissolved by an ex parte decree in a suit for dissolution filed by the wife. The respondent thereafter married on 30th July 1971 the deceased Smt. Kamlesh, aged about 20 years who was a resident of Jagadhari. The family of the respondent consisted of his widowed mother Smt. Darshnadevi (CW 1) and three brothers, namely, Bhupendra Prakash (CW 2), Narendra Prakash and Virendra Prakash, of whom the first two brothers were married while Virendra Prakash was unmarried. It is stated that his father had died of heart attack a few months before his second marriage. They all lived under a common roof, having common mess but in separate rooms in the first floor of their house with their respective wives and children. Smt. Darshnadevi and her younger son Virendra Prakash had occupied a separate room. The respondent had his clinic in the ground floor. PW-6, by name, Mohd. Aslam alias Chini was working as a Compounder in the clinic, occasionally doing domestic work.