SHOBHANLAL Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY judgment dated 14th September, 1989, under appeal, of the First Additional Sessions Judge, Balaghat, appellant No. 1 Shobhanlal stands convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 302 I. P. C. His two brothers, appellants No. 2 Sukhchand and No. 3 Roopchand and the remaining two appellants, No. 4 Madanlal and No. 5 Yado have been convicted under Section 302/149 I. P. C. and sentenced to imprisonment for life. All the appellants have been further convicted under Sections 147 and 364 I. P. C. and sentenced to R. I. for one year and R. I. for 10 years with fine of Rs. 200/- each respectively for the said two offences. It was directed that in default of fine the accused would suffer further R. I. for four months.

(2.) THE charge against the appellant No. 1 Shobhanlal is that he along with the co-accused on 21. 11. 1988 at about 6. 00 in the evening with the help and assistance of the other co-accused persons forcibly abducted his wife Smt. Dhurpatabai who was at the relevant time living with her parents and killed her in the night intervening 22. 11. 1988 and 23. 11. 1988. Her dead body was found in a well.

(3.) THE defence of the accused is that appellant No. 1 husband of the deceased, was trying since long to persuade the wife to live with him as she had deserted him and was living with her parents for the past more than two years. He had gone and brought her willingly to his house. There was a feast in the night on her return and then the couple went to bed. In the early hours of the next morning at 1 o'clock when appellant No. 1 woke up he found her missing. A report (Ex. P/8-C) was, therefore, lodged by accused Sukhchand at 4. 30 in the morning at Police out-post Khairlanji, Police Station Rampayali about the fact that the deceased, wife of appellant No. 1, was missing. The accused Sukhchand, brother of appellant No. 1, lodged a subsequent report on 23. 11. 1988 at about 9. 30 in the morning in the same police station that when the deceased was searched she was found dead in a well near their house. The said report was recorded as Merg intimation (Ex. P/9 ). Thereafter a first information report described as Dehati Fariyad (Ex. P/13) was lodged by Jaipal, father of the deceased. An inquest memo (Ex. P/10) was prepared and the body was sent for postmortem. The doctors namely, Dr. R. L. Bansod (P. W. 7) and Dr. G. C. Sharma (P. W. 8) performed the autopsy and gave postmortem report (Ex. P/7), the contents of which are important and need to be reproduced as the entire case of the prosecution and defence rests on the findings contained in the postmortem report.