SUMAN YADAV GAYASAMANDIR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY the impugned judgment the Additional Sessions Court, Greater Bombay, found both the appellants guilty for offence under section 302 read with 34 I. P. C. and each were convicted to suffer imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- in default of payment of fine to further undergo S. I. for 6 months. They were also convicted of the offence punishable under section 201 read with 511 and 34 I. P. C. but no separate sentence was passed. Accused No. 1 filed Criminal Appeal No. 556/92 and accused No. 2 filed Criminal Appeal No. 193/93. Mrs. Saxena, Counsel who filed appeal on behalf of accused No. 1 has not appeared and argued before us. However, Mrs. Kamath, appointed by the State for accused No. 2 in Criminal Appeal No. 193/92 has appeared and argued the case for both the accused. Since both the appeals arise out of a single judgment of the trial Court, we have heard and disposed of the above two appeals by this common judgment.

(2.) THE charge against the accused was that while both the accused were living in a hut at Ramabai Nagar hutments, Bhandup (West), Bombay 400 078, between the midnight of 30-1-1988 and 01. 00 A. M. of 31-1-1988, with the common intention, both of them intentionally and knowingly killed Yadav Sahaji Gayasamandir, the husband of accused No. 1, by means of assaulting him with a heavy grinding stone (pata) and other inhuman physical torture and thereby both of them committed an offence of murder punishable -under section 302 I. P. C.

(3.) THE prosecution case can be briefly stated as follows : The deceased Yadav Sahaji Gayasamandir lived in a hut, having the walls of tin sheets, partitioned into two parts, by a curtain at Ramabai Nagar hutments, Bhandup (West), Bombay 400 078. In the northern portion of this hut, the deceased along with his wife Suman Yadav Gayasamandir, accused No. 1, and his two children of less than 5 years of age was living. His elder son aged about 8 years used to live with his father-in-law in a hutment of Kanjurmarg. The deceased was a labourer. His wife accused No. 1, used to serve as a labourer in a Steel Supplying Company at Kanjurmarg. According to the prosecution, about 3 years prior to the incident accused No. 2 came to Bombay and happened to serve as a watchman in the laboratory of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, which is situated near the working place of accused No. 1. Accordingly, the two accused came in contact at their place of work and their relationship grew up into an illegitimate connection. About 8 to 9 months prior to the date of the incident. Accused No. 2, who hails from Nagewadi, Khanapur, District Sangli, came and lived in the southern portion of the tenement of the deceased, on rent. Accused No. 2 was married about six years prior to the incident and 2 to 3 years after the marriage he deserted her. On 18-11-1987 he again married P. W. 7 Rekha and lived at Nagewadi for a fortnight and thereafter lived in the rented room belonging to the deceased only for a period of one month. During that period P. W. 7, Rekha noticed that the accused No. 2 and accused No. 1 used to have food together in the same thali, used to go out of the hut together, work together and used to return home together. Consequently P. W. 7 Rekha, wife of accused No. 2, suspected that the two accused were having illicit relations though both of them posed that they were brother and sister. Since accused No. 2 ill-treated Rekha P. W. 7 she went to live with her father P. W. 15 Antu Keshav Karande, near Sion Hospital.