GURU MGAWADE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD Senior Advocate Mr. Dessai for the appellant and Mr. Lawande, the Public Prosecutor for the State. This is an appeal by the accused against his conviction under Section 302 I.P.C. by which he is sentenced to imprisonment for life by the Addl. Sessions Judge. Panaji by his judgment dated 31 -1 -2000. The prosecution case was that on 6 -3 -1999 the accused under the influence of liquor had a quarrel with his wife Gulabi Gawade. He then poured kerosene on her person and with the help of paper lighted on the gas stove and set her on fire. She sustained 59% burn injuries and died at the Goa Medical College Hospital after six days i.e. on 123 -1999.

(2.) THE prosecution examined in all 18 witnesses including the Medical Officer arid also the Deputy Collector who had recorded dying declaration. The Doctor who examined the accused for the bum injuries on his hand was also examined by the prosecution. Admittedly there was no eye witness supporting the prosecution case. The prosecution examined one witness PW. 3 Vishnu H. Gawade as an eye witness, but he turned hostile and did not support the prosecution case. The conviction was mainly based on the dying declaration recorded by the Deputy Collector, who also was the Sub -Divisional Magistrate.

(3.) ON the other hand Mr. Lawande contended that the dying declaration is recorded as required by law; that the Doctor who examined the victim Gulabi certified her to be fit to give dying declaration; that there was nothing unnatural in the dying declaration and even though the two witnesses had deposed that Gulabi had told them that she caught fire because of bursting of stove, the panchanama has disclosed that the stove was intact and therefore, this statement was obviously wrong and, therefore, no reliance could be placed on the evidence of these two witnesses. Mr. Lawande also pointed out that the theory put forth by the accused that he tried to extinguish the fire, is liable to be out rightly rejected because the accused suffered very minor injuries, that too only on one hand and on the backside of the hand. A man extinguishing fire according to Mr. Lawande, cannot use only one hand and the very fact that the injury was only to one hand supported the prosecution case that it is he who poured kerosene and set his wife ablaze.