REHMATULLA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has been held guilty and convicted by judgment dated 10.01.2012 of the Additional Sessions Judge for the offence punishable under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 ("IPC") on the charge of he having committed the murder of his wife Nafisa Khatoon ("the deceased") by strangulating her to death on the night intervening 17th -18th March, 2008 in a rented accommodation in the house of Tejpal in Village Asola, Fatehpur Beri, New Delhi. The findings of guilty were returned primarily on the basis of opinion of a board of doctors as to the cause of death being asphyxia strangulation, it having occurred within the confines of the tenanted room where the deceased was statedly alone with the appellant during the night, coupled with his conduct including the undue hurry in taking the dead body for burial without the unnatural death having been reported.

(2.) BY order dated 12.01.2012, the trial court sentenced the appellant to imprisonment for life with fine of Rs. 1000/ - and in default to simple imprisonment for one month. By the appeal at hand, the appellant seeks to assail both the judgment and the order on sentence.

(3.) IT must be mentioned, at this stage, that the deceased aged about 18 years at the time of death, as confirmed by the death report (Ex. PW -19/A) and the autopsy report (Ex.PW -2/A), was daughter of Mohd. Suleman (PW -4), a native of village Pulwaria, PS Kishan Pur, District -Supol, Bihar and was married to one Ansarul Haq, local resident of a nearby village. It appears that the said marriage had resulted in some differences and Nafisa Khatoon was brought back by her father to the parental home, then pregnant with the child of her husband while he (the husband) had contracted another marriage. It has been admitted by Mohd. Ziauddin (PW -3), brother of the deceased, that no divorce took place but Nafisa Khatoon started living separately from the husband. It further appears that, in due course, she delivered the child (a daughter) conceived out of the first marriage but the child, according to PW -4, did not survive long and died in Moradabad.