YAD RAM Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Yad Ram, the appellant before us, was arraigned before the learned Sessions Judge, Moradabad for the murder of his wife. The trial culminated in an order of conviction and sentence of death recorded against the appellant. Aggrieved thrreby he filed an appeal add the learned trial Judge, in his turn, made the obligatory, reference under section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for confirmation of the sentence of death. The appeal and the reference have been heard together and this judgment will dispose of both of them.

(2.) Bereft of details, die case for the prosecution is as under: On April 12, 1982 at or about 6.30 p.m. Jagannath Sharma (P.W. 1), a resident of Puranaganj in the district of Rampur, went to Bilari Police Station in the district of Moradabad and lodged a report. In that report he stated that his sister Smt. Ashoka Devi was given in marriage to Yad Ram (the appellant) ten years back. For the last few years their relationship was not cordial and, ultimately, being unable to bear his tortures any more, she came back to their place two months earlier and started living there. Thereafter Yad Ram came there and on his entreaties his (P.W. 1) mother allowed Ashoka Devi to go with him. Even after she had gone back to her husbands place, he had been receiving information from his elder sister Shyama Devi, who was married to Krishna Avtar Sharma of Mohalla Bazar, Bilari, that Yad Ram had been torturing and tormenting Ashoka Devi. On that very day, that is, on 12.4.1982, he received a message sent by Krishna A v tar Sharma through one Ram Nath asking him to come to Bilari. On getting the message, he along with his mother and cousin Naresh Kumar Sharma came to Bilari and found her sister lying dead in her house with bums on her body. On inquiry, he learnt that in the night between 11th and 12th April, 1982, at or about 3 a.m. Yad Ram had set her on fire, removed her semi-burnt clothes and thrown them in a well. He had, thereafter, furtively given her some treatment but she could not be cured and ultimately she died around 5.30 p.m. On the basis of the above report, Bilari Police Station registered a case against the appellant and S.I. K.B. Singh (P.W. 6) took up investigation. He reached the spot on the same night and after holding inquest upon the dead body sent it for postmortem examination. He recovered some clothes belonging to the deceased from inside a well there and prepared a seizure memo in respect thereof. He found a stove in the house of the appellant which had neither any oil inside nor was it serviceable. On April 18, 1982 the investigation of the case was taken over by S.1. Inder Pal Singh (P.W. 4) who seized the above stove, arrested the appellant and on completion of investigation, submitted charge sheet. In due course the case was committed to the Court of Session.

(3.) The appellant pleaded not guilty to the charge framed against him. His defence was that he was not present at the time, date and place of the alleged occurrence and that he had been falsely implicated. His further defence was that on the day in question he had gone to village Sujatpur to bring his son and on the following day when he returned he found his wife lying burnt. She told him that while preparing tea she had caught fire and received injuries. He then took her to Dr. Udai Sharan Sharma, Dr. Arman and Devendra Pal, who examined her, but she could not be saved.