RAJKUMAR Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant herein was convicted under Section 304, Part II, IPC and sentenced to suffer imprisonment for ten years and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/-. The High Court reversed the order of acquittal of the Additional Sessions Judge, Shivpuri in Sessions Case No. 90 of 1986 in which charges were framed against the appellant under Sections 302 and 498-A of IPC. The appellant was charged of committing the murder of his wife Kalpana on 23-5-1986 at about 2.00 p.m. at his house. The appellant married Kalpana in May, 1985. At the time of the incident which took place a year later, she was in the advanced stage of pregnancy.

(2.) The accused-Rajkumar and his brother Shyamlal (PW-15) were residing in the same building. Adjacent to this building, their elder brother Keshav Prasad Agrawal (PW-17) was residing. The accused-Rajkumar was occupying the third floor. It was in the bed-room of the accused that his wife was brutally attacked.

(3.) PW-15 - the brother of the accused invited Suresh Kumar Chokse (PW-2), Gopal Krishna Dandatiya (PW-5) and Mahesh Prasad Pandey (PW-13) for lunch on that crucial day. At about 2.00 p.m., after hearing some noise and cries they went to the upper floor of the building and found the wife of the accused lying almost naked with face down in a pool of blood in the bed room with injuries all over the body. PW-15 went inside the room and asked her as to what happened. She replied "Ve Mar Gaye" (the literal translation of Ve being they). The mother of the accused, who was in the 2nd floor, told PW-13 while weeping that some altercation was going on upstairs.