MANGILAL GUJAR Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal under section 374 of the Cr.P.C. is directed against the judgment dated 8.4.2008 passed by the Court of Sessions Judge, Ujjain in S.T.No.281/2007 convicting the appellant for the offence under Section 302 of the IPC and sentencing him to imprisonment for life and fine of Rs.500/- with default sentence of one month.

(2.) The prosecution story is that deceased Mankunwarbai was wife of the appellant. On 8.8.2007 i.e. on the date of date of incident, Mishrabai-mother of the appellant had come to the complainant Kishanlal and had informed that appellant had closed the room from inside and was doing something. On receiving this intimation, Kishanlal(PW-2) along with his father, Bherulal (PW-3) had reached to the house of the appellant followed by the other villagers and on asking by Kishanlal and Bherulal, it was replied by Mankunwarbai from inside the house that the accused was beating her. On this, door of the room was forcely opened and on reaching inside, Kishanlal and Bherulal had found that Mankunwarbai was bleeding and lying on the cot unconscious. The accused-appellant had tried to attack them and Kishanlal had snatched the iron weight and stone from him. Mankunwarbai was kept on a tractor and she had died on the way while taking her to the police station to lodge the report. FIR (Ex.P/3) was lodged by Kishanlal(PW-2) in the police station Ingoriya on the same day within one hour and forty minutes of the incident at 10.40 a.m. narrating the incident, on the basis of which offence was registered against the appellant and spot Panchnama was prepared and postmortem was done by Dr.Bhaskar Wagde (PW-1) and postmortem report (Ex.P/2) was prepared. During the course of investigation, appellant was arrested and his blood stained clothes and stone etc. were seized and sent for the FSL and the FSL report (Ex.P/17) was received. After investigation challan was filed. Appellant had abjured the guilt, hence trial took place which resulted into the conviction and sentence of the appellant as mentioned above.

(3.) Learned counsel for appellant submits that there is no cogent material to connect the appellant with the alleged offence and that no traditional weapon such as sword, axe etc. were used to cause the injury, therefore at the most it would be a case of committing offence under section 304 IPC.