RAJKUMAR @ RAJU Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has preferred this appeal challenging his conviction under Section 302 of IPC and sentence of life imprisonment with fine of Rs.3000/- and in default, RI of one year awarded by 18th Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track), Indore vide judgment dated 31/07/2007 delivered in Sessions Trial No.116/2007.

(2.) Background facts giving rise to the present appeal in brief are that the deceased Nirmala Bai was married to the appellant about 15-16 years prior to the date of incident, but after sometime, they developed some differences. Since last 7- 8 years, the appellant was misbehaving with her. He used to beat her after having liquor. Perturbed with this harassment and cruelty, the deceased used to come back and stay with her brother and parents, but every time, the appellant used to come and apologize and take her back. This practice was going on since a long. Prior to the incident, the deceased along-with her youngest daughter came back home and was staying with her younger brother Chandrakant. On 28/11/2006 at about 7:30 P.M., the appellant barged into the house of Chandrakant, beat Nirmala, dragged her up to the road and knifed on the vital part including neck of her body and caused fatal injuries, resulting in her death.

(3.) Elder brother of the deceased Laxminarayan Khandelwal lodged FIR No.618/06 (Ex.P/6) against four persons namely, Raju @ Rajkumar, Sikandar @ Shailendra Kumar, Kamlabai W/o Saligram and Saligram S/o Ishwarlal (husband, his brother and parents) under Section 302 of IPC at Police Station Annapurna, Indore. The police also registered Merg No.40/06 (Ex.P/5) and investigated the case. During investigation, the police called the witnesses vide Ex.P/7, prepared panchnama lash before them (Ex.P/8), visited the spot, prepared spot map (Ex.P/23), seized plain and bloodstained soil (Ex.P/17), sent the dead body and requested the doctor for postmortem. Dr. Bharat Prakash (P.W.1) performed autopsy and opined that the death of the deceased was due to profuse bleeding because of injuries sustained by her and nature of death was homicidal. The police arrested all four accused persons vide arrest memo Exs.P/10, P/11 and P/12, interrogated the appellant, prepared memo of information given by him (Ex.P/13), seized knife used in the incident vide seizure memo Ex.P/16 from his possession. The police also seized his bloodstained shirt vide seizure memo Ex.P/15 and received viscera and clothes of the deceased from the hospital. The police sent all articles to the FSL for chemical examination vide letter Ex.P/18, recorded police statement of the witnesses, recovered a notebook from the appellant and obtained his admitted handwriting, sent both the disputed and admitted handwriting to the FSL, who confirmed that both are originated from the same person, means both handwriting were of the appellant (Ex.P/22). After completing investigation, the police filed charge-sheet against all four accused persons.