RUPJYA SHIDVA KAVTE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BEING aggrieved by the judgment and order of conviction and sentence passed on 16-2-1999 by Additional Sessions Judge, palghar in Sessions Case No. 884/96 the appellant named above has preferred this appeal on the grounds mentioned in the memo of appeal and as verbally canvassed by the learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant before us.

(2.) WITH the assistance of the learned Counsel for the defence and the prosecution we have scrutinized the record and reappreciated the evidence.

(3.) THE prosecution story as disclosed on reappreciation of evidence on record stated briefly is that the deceased Laxmi was the wife of accused rupja. Accused Rupja used to suspect character of his wife Laxmi. One day late in the evening he returned home and assaulted his wife Laxmi who was at that time busy with her domestic chores and was sitting near the chula i. e. stove in the kitchen. He had first dealt a wooden log blow on her face and thereafter stabbed her with gupti in her chest, as a result of which she died on the spot. Thereafter, accused wrapped dead body of Laxmi in cotton cloth piece blanked i. e. Godhadi and threw her body in the backyard of the house of his neighbour and then returned home, washed the blood stained floor with a gunny bag i. e. gonpat and thereafter, raised cries that somebody had killed his wife. He himself went to his brother-in-law i. e. brother of deceased laxmi and told him that Laxmi was murdered, but by some one else. Hearing the same, Laxmi's brother and other relatives reached to the spot and one of her brothers, complainant Raju, then gave report of this incident in the small hours'of 9-1-1996 at Police Station, Vasai, on the basis of which the present crime bearing Crime No. I-3/1996 was registered.