MOHAMMAD ZAKIR MOHAMMAD Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant-original accused, by the present criminal appeal, is challenging the judgment and order dated 23.10.2019 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Akola in Sessions Case No.115/2016. By the said judgment and order, the appellant was found guilty of committing offence under Section 307 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code and was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and imprisonment for life respectively and also to pay fine of Rs.10,000/- and Rs.25,000/- respectively.

(2.) The prosecution case briefly stated is as follows:

(3.) During the trial, the prosecution examined total six witnesses. PW-1 Shantaram Amrutrao Navkar is the panch witness of spot and seizure panchanama, PW-2 Mohd. Haru @ Kallu Bapuji Solanki is the brother of the deceased and PW-3 Akil Solanki Pir Mohammad is the son-in-law of the deceased and both of them have not supported the case of the prosecution and declared as hostile. PW-4 Sanjay Ramji Mishra, PSI is the investigating officer, who carried out further investigation after 16.1.2016 and filed the chargesheet. PW-5 P.S. Lanjewar, PSI has recorded the dying declaration (Exh.29) and also carried out part investigation. PW-6 Dr. T.O. Padole is the Medical Officer, who performed postmortem. The defence of the appellant is that on 13.1.2016 in the night at about 8.30 pm, he had gone to the house of his brother-in-law for dinner as the guests had come there and as his wife was not invited, she raised objection for his attendance for dinner at the house of his brother-in-law and in spite of the same, he went to the house of his brother-in-law and when he was having dinner in the house of his brother-in-law, at that time, he heard shouts of the neighbours and, therefore, they all came out and saw that his wife was burning in front of his house and, therefore, he along with his brother-in-law and the guests went running and extinguished the fire and during that process, he also sustained some burn injuries. Thereafter, they took the deceased to the hospital in the auto-rickshaw.