ASHISH GUPTA Vs. STATE OF C.G.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant by way of this appeal call in question the judgment dtd. 7/12/2021 passed by Special Judge, Balrampur at Ramanujganj (CG) in Special Case No. 03/2020 by which he has been convicted under Ss. 302, 201 IPC and Sec. 3 (2) (v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short the "Special Act") and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment with fine of Rs.100.00 under Sec. 302 IPC and Sec. 3 (2) (v) of the Special Act each, and RI for 3 years with fine of Rs.100.00 under Sec. 201 IPC, plus default stipulation.

(2.) Deceased in this case is Kirti Sonwani. The incident in this case is stated to have taken place in the intervening night of 13/10/2019 and 14/10/2019. The factual backdrop of the instant case is that initially a case for rape was registered against the accused/appellant at the instance of father of the deceased herein. However, during trial the deceased/prosecutrix turned hostile and the accused/appellant got acquitted in that case, and thereafter they both got married and started living separately in a rental house. It is relevant to note here that apart from the deceased and accused, brother of the deceased also stayed with them. On the date of incident it is said that the accused/appellant taking the deceased with him left for her maternal home at village Karcha, however after sometime he returned and told his brother-in-law namely Akshay Sonwani (PW-1) that having met with an accident, his sister (the deceased) died. On coming to know about the incident, father of the deceased namely Chhaihat Sonwani (PW-2) gave a merg intimation (Ex.P-14) to the concerned Police Station on the basis of which FIR (Ex.P-18) was registered for the offences under Ss. 302, 201 IPC. After drawing the spot map the dead body was sent for Postmortem examination and the Postmortem report is Ex.P-10. On the memorandum of the accused/appellant, various articles such as Motorcycle and clothes were seized under Ex.P-8 and Ex.P-9 and they were sent for chemical examination to Forensic Science Laboratory. After investigation charge-sheet was filed under the same Ss. plus for the Sec. under the Special Act as mentioned above.

(3.) Prosecution examined as many as 9 witnesses in order to prove its case. Statement of the accused/appellant under Sec. 313 CrPC was also recorded in which he denied the allegations made against him, and claimed trial.