BIMLA DEVI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two appellants are mother and son and they have been convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 302/201/34 IPC by the learned Additional Sessions Judge vide judgment dated 14th October, 1998 and have been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and also to pay fine of Rs.5,000 /- each with a default stipulation for their conviction for the offence of murder and three years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs.2000/- with a default stipulation of three months rigorous imprisonment under Section 201/34 IPC vide order dated 23rd October, 1998. They were tried for these offences along with one Deepak, who is the son of the appellant Bimla Devi and brother of the other appellant Anil Kumar and one Ram Gopal who happened to be the friend of Deepak.

(2.) Deepak and Ram Gopal were acquitted by the trial court and the State did not challenge their acquittal.

(3.) The two accused-appellants and the two acquitted accused were charge-sheeted by the police for their having murdered one Farzana, daughter of PW-3 Mumtaz Ahmed and PW-12 Afroz Bano and sister of PW-4 Zuber, on 9th May,1995. The prosecution case as projected in the charge-sheet and the material submitted alongwith it in the Court of the concerned Metropolitan Magistrate was that the deceased Farzana had for some time worked as a teacher in the school which was being run by the accused-appellant Anil Kumar by the name of Sun Flower School in his residential property no. C-488, Shivaji Marg, Chajju Pur, Shahdara, Delhi. After working there for some months she left the job to pursue her studies in college. During the period of her employment in the said school she became friendly with accused Anil Kumar's brother Deepak (acquitted accused) and they both got married also in February,1995 but their marriage was not acceptable to the parents of the deceased Farzana because both the families belonged to different religious communities. Though the deceased had married the acquitted accused Deepak but she did not want to stay with him in her matrimonial home since her elder sister was still unmarried and so she wanted to start living with Deepak as his wife only after the marriage of her elder sister. That attitude of the deceased became a cause of their relations becoming strained and that too to such an extent that the acquitted accused Deepak and his mother and brother Anil Kumar decided to get rid of Fazana by killing her. On 8th May,1995 acquitted accused Deepak called up the landlord of the father of the deceased(PW-2 Kallu) and told him to tell the deceased Farzana to come to meet him in the school in connection with her job. She however did not go to the school that day. Next day again Deepak called up PW-2 Kallu and told him to ask Farzana to come to the school. That day, as per the further prosecution case, Farzana went to meet Deepak around 4.15 p.m. at his residence-cum-school. Deepak brought her to a room where the two accused-appellants were already present. Acquitted accused Ram Gopal was also present there. The accused-appellants then allegedly left Farzana in the company of the two acquitted accused and went away telling Deepak to finish off the matter once for all. Deepak allegedly then assaulted repeatedly Farzana her with an iron moosli(pistle- normally used to crush spices) on her head and other parts of her body due to which she died at the spot itself. After assaulting the deceased Deepak and Ram Gopal went away from the scene of crime leaving behind the dead body of the deceased there as also the moosli. After sometime the accused-appellants came back to the room where they had left the acquitted accused and the deceased Farzana and they found the dead body of Farzana lying there as also the weapon of offence i.e. Moosli. They kept the weapon of offence in one almirah lying in another room of their house and decided to remove the dead body of Farzana from there and to take it out of their house. The dead body was dragged upto the main entrance gate but they could not succeed in taking away the dead body out of their house as public persons were passing through the road outside their house. Before they could remove the dead body to some place where nobody could see it PW-5 Ayub noticed the dead body of Farzana lying near the entrance gate of the house of the accused-appellants and he then informed the parents of Farzana. They rushed to the spot and found the accusedappellants standing near the dead body of Farzana with their blood stained clothes. They informed the police.