MAHADEVGIRI MOHANGIRI GOSWAMI Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, having been found guilty of the offences punishable under Sections 302, 376, 363, 366 and 511 etc. of Indian Penal Code and having been interalia sentenced to life imprisonment by impugned judgment and order dated 21.04.2006 passed by learned Presiding Officer, Third Fast Track Court, Rajkot in Sessions Case No.65 of 2004 is before this Court questioning the impugned judgment and order.

(2.) At the outset, we may note that after hearing this matter and perusing the evidence on record, our conscience is shocked because it is a case where the appellant should not have been in jail even for a minute but has suffered rigorous imprisonment for not less than 8 years only because he appears to have been framed by the Investigator and the prosecutor even though apparently he is innocent as argued by learned Counsel for the appellant.

(3.) A complaint came to be lodged on 08th March, 2004, produced at Exh.51 by P.W.1 Maniben complaining about her daughter aged 7 years having gone missing on the previous day around 7:00 or 7:30 in the evening while her daughter was playing outside her hut and she had gone along with her soninlaw to attend a phone call of son of her sisterinlaw from Chiloda Village at the shop of one Jaysukhbhai situated opposite to the hut of the complainant. It was her case that on return she did not find her and presumed that the child might have gone to watch the television in the house of Vajubhai. That since it was a dinner time she went to the house of Vajubhai to fetch her but was not found there, and therefore, inquired at the house of Mohangiri as also in the vicinity, but in vain. Even at the night the search was continued and as it was full moon night, she could find her daughter in the openyard of closed house of one Vitthalbhai Koli at about 9.00 on finding her bleeding through nose, she cried havoc, in response to which her soninlaw and nephew Ashok Ratnagiri and others came to the place. Her soninlaw and she herself and others helped her daughter to Jasdan Hospital where the victim was declared dead. The police had come and recorded accidental death.