GANESH BHAGYA MANDAVKAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against conviction of the Appellant by the Trial Court. The learned Sessions Judge, Mangaon, District Raigad, by judgment and order dtd. 28/11/2018, has convicted Shri Ganesh Bhagya Mandavkar (Appellant - originally Accused No. 1) and Mangesh Pandu Jadhav (originally Accused No. 2) of the offence punishable under Sec. 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, (for short: "IPC ") read with Sec. 34 IPC. Under Sec. 235 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, (for short: "CrPC "), the learned Sessions Judge has sentenced the accused to suffer life imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs.15,000.00 and in the case of default in the payment of the fine, to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year each.

(2.) We are informed across the bar by the learned Public Prosecutor that Accused No. 2 expired during the pendency of the appeal. The present appeal is preferred by the original Accused No. 1. For the sake of convenience, the original Accused No. 1 i.e., Ganesh Bhagya Mandavkar shall be referred to as "Appellant".

(3.) The incident took place on 7/2/2017. The case of the Prosecution is that on 7/2/2017 at about 3:30 PM, Shri Narayan Kisan Giri (P.W. 2), the Village Police Patil of Ranvali Village, received a phone call from a lady called Smt. Chitrangi Chandrakant Shirpurkar a resident of Ranvali Village. She informed him that an unknown person has killed Savitri Sagar Pawar (hereinafter referred to as the "deceased") by strangulation and her dead body was lying in the jungle area. She asked him to proceed to the spot of the incident. Shri Giri reached the spot and found the deceased, lying dead on barren land belonging to Shri Pravin Sundar Gogarkar, with a cotton towel entangled around her neck and dry blood oozing out from her mouth, neck, cheek, and head. The husband of the deceased i.e., Shri Sagar Pawar, Shri Chandrakant Shirpurkar and the Appellant were found sitting near the body of the deceased. He thereafter informed the police authorities about the incident and filed the F.I.R. in the evening on 7/2/2017 (at about 8.48 p.m.) with Srivardhan Police Station, which has been marked as Exhibit "23".