NASIRBHAI SALIMBHAI PATHAN Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal has been filed by the appellant-accused under Section 374 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, against the judgment and order dated 27.05.2016 passed by learned 6th Additional Sessions Judge, Bhavnagar in Sessions Case No.118 of 2015, whereby the appellant-accused was convicted for the offence under Sections 306, 498(A) and 504 of the Indian Penal Code (herein after referred to as "IPC" for short). By the impugned judgment, under Section 306 of the IPC, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven years and ordered to pay Rs.5,000/- fine and in default of payment of fine, simple imprisonment for a period of two months was imposed and under Section 498(A) of the IPC, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of three years and ordered to pay Rs.5,000/- fine and in default of payment of fine, simple imprisonment for a period of two months was imposed and under Section 504 of the IPC, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and ordered to pay Rs.2,000/- fine and in default of payment of fine, simple imprisonment for a period of two months was imposed. All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

(2.) The case of the prosecution in short is that on 24.04.2015, the appellant-accused came to home at around 12:15 a.m. and there was some heated arguments between the victim/complainant/wife and the appellant-accused and thereafter, the wife told the appellant-accused not to use bad words and in the meanwhile, the appellant-accused ran after her. Therefore, she went inside the house and locked the room and took the kerosene and poured it over herself and set on fire. Thereafter, brother of the appellant-accused called 108 emergency and took the victim to the hospital where after some time, during the treatment, she was declared dead. Therefore, the complaint was lodged with the police.

(3.) Learned advocate Mr. Kaivan K. Patel for the appellant submits that none of the witnesses including mother and brother of the victim as well as neighbours have supported the case of prosecution and they have been declared hostile to the case of prosecution and therefore, solely based upon 3 alleged dying declarations made before the treating Doctor, Police as well as Executive Magistrate which are also contradictory in nature, the learned trial Court recorded the conviction, which ought not to have been done. Still, however, he argued that in order to put an end to the matter, the appellant-accused has already undergone sentence for about 4 years and therefore, if the sentence imposed upon the appellant-accused may be reduced to the extent of sentence he has already undergone, he would not claim for clean acquittal.