SADASHIV GANGADHAR GAVANDE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THROUGH this Appeal, the Appellant challenges the judgment and order dated 30th March 1996 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Aurangabad, in Sessions Case No. 223 of 1995, whereby he has been convicted and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 300/-, in default to undergo three months R. I. , for the offence punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) SHORTLY stated, the prosecution case runs as under. At the time of the incident, the Appellant Sadashiv Gangadhar Gavande was residing along with his wife, deceased Dwarkabai, and their three children in a room in the house of his father in law situated at Isarwadi, taluka Paithan, district Aurangabad. The Appellant was serving as a fieldman in a sugar factory. He was addicted to liquor and in a drunken condition used to assault his wife, deceased Dwarkabai. Initially, Dwarkabai complained about the conduct of the Appellant to her brother, Dattatraya, P. W. 3 and other family members, but finding no account of the ill-treatment meted out to her by the Appellant, Dwarkabai had lodged two non-cognisable complaints against him. On 11-2-1995, at about 12 - 12. 30 noon, while Dwarkabai was preparing food on a stove in a room in her father's house in Isarwadi, taluka Paithan, the Appellant, in a drunken condition, came and inquired from her why loan had not been taken for the purposes of sugarcane crop. He immediately thereafter poured kerosene oil on her from a plastic can and set her on fire by taking out a match stick from a match box. Dwarkabai started shouting that the Appellant had set her on fire. Hearing her cries, Ramnath Bobade, P. W. 1, the cousin brother of her father Raghunath, and Dattatraya, P. W. 3, her real brother, who were living in immediate proximity came. Ramnath, on finding that Dwarkabai was precariously burnt, wrapped her in a quilt and thereafter, Dattatraya brought a rickshaw wherein Dwarkabai was removed to Paithan hospital.

(3.) THE evidence of Dr. Suryakant Sonkhedkar, P. W. 4, shows that he gave medical treatment to Dwarkabai and made an endorsement on Exhibit 16 that Dwarkabai was in a condition to give a statement. THEreafter, H. C. Rathod recorded her statement in his presence. At that time, Dwarkabai was speaking properly. After her statement had been recorded, he signed on the same. THE endorsement given on the said statement is at Exhibit 17. THE said statement is at Exhibit 41. THE said statement has been recorded in Marathi. Since, in our view, it is a crucial piece of evidence, on which conviction of the Appellant is founded, we are reproducing its English translation, which reads thus :