THAKUR SINGH Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant has filed this appeal against the judgment dated 05.07.2002 passed by Special Judge [Atrocities], Narsinghpur in Sessions Trial No. 45/2000 convicting him under section 302 I.P.C. and section 201 I.P.C. (on two counts) and sentencing him to imprisonment for life with fine of Rs. 1000/- and rigorous imprisonment for 3 years (on two counts) with fine of Rs. 500/-, on each count respectively. In short, the prosecution case is that appellant had married Dashoda Bai, the deceased. She was his second wife. After marriage, for about 1 -2 years she lived with appellant and gave birth to a child Ashish, but after that she went back to her parents' house and started living with them. On 24.12.1999, appellant came to the house of her parents and took deceased and her son Ashish, aged about 3 years, on a motorcycle to Narsinghpur for showing her to some doctor, as she had pain in her ears. In the night, appellant came back and informed to her parents that after visiting the doctor he and deceased had gone to see a picture. After that he asked deceased and his son to sit on the culvert near a temple and went to fetch medicine. When he returned he did not find them there. He searched them for about 2 hours but failed to locate them. Appellant then, in the morning, lodged a missing report at police station. Parents of deceased viz. Jiji Bai (PW-4) and Vijay Singh (PW-7) suspected that appellant might have killed the deceased and her son as in the past he had also committed murder of his uncle and further that he was annoyed from the fact that his father had executed an agreement of three acres of agricultural land in favour of deceased.

(2.) On the basis of suspicion expressed by the parents of deceased, when police interrogated appellant, he disclosed that he committed murder of his wife and son by strangulating them and buried their bodies in the embankment of his Tukiya Wala field. On the said information, a memorandum was recorded and in the presence of witnesses and Executive Magistrate Ajay Pathak (PW-3) the dead bodies were dug out and recovered from the field. Broken bangles and a five rupee note of the deceased was also seized from the spot, marg intimation Ex. P/25 and first information report Ex. P/24 was also recorded. After investigation, charge sheet under sections 302/201 I.P.C. was filed against him in the Court.

(3.) Since in the memorandum of information, appellant had disclosed that he committed murder of deceased persons with the help of Kammu Nai, he was also made accused in the case and charge sheet against him was also filed in his absence, but during the pendency of the case, Kammu Nai committed suicide, therefore, the case against him was closed.