NINGAPPA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant/accused has filed this appeal under Sec. 374(2) of Cr.P.C. challenging the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Dharwad in S.C. No. 6/2017 dtd. 13/11/2017 whereby the learned Sessions Judge has convicted the appellant/accused under Ss. 302 and 201 of IPC and sentenced him imprisonment for life with fine of Rs.5,000.00 for the offence under Sec. 302 of IPC with default clause and rigorous imprisonment for a period of 3 years with fine of Rs.5,000.00 with default clause for the offence under Sec. 201 of IPC.

(2.) For the sake of convenience, parties shall be referred with the original ranks occupied by them before the trial court.

(3.) According to the prosecution, on 22/4/2016 at about 9.00 or 9.30 p.m. the deceased slept in her house along with her husband and children and it is alleged that at about 3.00 a.m. accused informed his brother-in-law i.e., another son of the complainant by name Parashuram and reported that his wife is not responding as she did not wake up in spite of all the efforts. The matter was brought to the notice of the complainant and immediately complainant along with other family members went to Hanamanal village where they found that deceased Manjula was sleeping on the that and she was already dead. As such, the complainant suspected some foul play and he lodged a complaint regarding unnatural death of his daughter as per Ex. P7. On the basis of the same, UDR crime No. 14/2016 was registered under Sec. 174 of Cr.P.C. and FIR came to be issued as per Ex. P20 to Taluka Executive Magistrate. Thereafter, scene of occurrence mahazar was conducted and inquest was also conducted on the dead body. Later on, postmortem was conducted on the dead body and the Medical Officer who has conducted the postmortem has collected viscera and hyoid bone and sent the same to KIMS Hospital and to FSL for examination. The postmortem report was received on 7/5/2016 and final opinion is withheld for want of FSL report.