BHAJJU Vs. STATE OF.M.P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Criminal Appeal under Section 374 of Cr.P.C. has been filed against the judgment and sentence dated 29/3/2004 passed by Special Judge, [Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act]/Additional Sessions Judge, Gwalior in SST No.43/2003, thereby convicting the appellant for the following offence:

(2.) The prosecution story in short is that the deceased Munnibai had lost her husband prior to four years of the date of incident, i.e. on 24/11/2002. Munnibai had six children and after leaving them, she was residing with the appellant for the last one and half years as his wife. On 24/11/2002 at about 12 PM the appellant and the deceased Munnibai went towards Parvati river alongwith the fishing net and tube for the purposes of fishing. It is alleged that Maniram and Hardas were also catching fishes in the nearby area. They heard the noise of quarrel between the appellant and Munnibai. They saw that Munnibai was lying on the ground and the appellant was choking her neck with the help of one Safi. When both these witnesses tried to come towards them, then they were threatened by the appellant that in case if the incident is narrated to anybody, then he would kill them. Thereafter, the appellant ran away. Maniram and Hardas saw that the deceased Munnibai had already expired. As they got frightened, therefore, they came back to their house and did not inform the incident to anybody. On 25/11/2002, i.e. on the next date of incident, somebody informed the younger brother-in-law of the deceased (Devar) Gunga that Munnibai-deceased is lying in a dead condition near the river, therefore, he went to see her dead body. Since he was dumb, therefore, he narrated the incident to Girjabai (PW-5) by signs and accordingly, Girjabai alongwith Gunga went to police station to lodge the report and accordingly, the report Ex.P/3 under Section 174 of Cr.P.C. was lodged and inquest No.37/2002 was registered. The police prepared the spot map. Lash Panchnama was prepared. The dead body of the deceased was sent to CHC Bhitarwar. As per postmortem report, the cause of death was asphyxia and throttling and accordingly, the first information report, Ex.P/10 was registered in Crime No.269/2002. During the course of investigation, Girjabai (PW-5) informed that she had seen that the deceased and the appellant had gone towards Parvati river and, therefore, she had a suspicion against the appellant accordingly, she searched for him, but he was not found. Ultimately, on 2/5/2003 the appellant was arrested and on the basis of his discovery memo recorded under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, a Safi of green colour was seized vide seizure memo Ex.P/2, which was kept in a hidden condition by digging a hole in the earth. The seized Safi was sent to FSL, Gwalior vide request memo Ex.P/14. After recording the statement of the witnesses, the police filed the charge-sheet for offence under Section 302 of IPC and under Section 3 (2) (v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), Act 1989 (in short "Act, 1989" ).

(3.) The Trial Court by order dated 7/7/2003 framed charges under Section 302 of IPC read with Section 3 (2) (v) of the Act, 1989.