JASODA PATRA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant having been convicted for commission of offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (in short 'i. P. C. ') and sentenced to undergo r. I. for life, has preferred this appeal against the order and judgment of conviction and sentence passed by the learned additional Sessions Judge, Deogarh in S. T. Case No. 18/8 of 2001.

(2.) THE accusations on the basis of which the appellant and three others were tried for commission of offence under Section 302 i. P. C. are that the appellant is the wife of the deceased. Initially the appellant had good relationship and had been blessed with three children out of whom one expired by the time the appellant was in her parental house. The deceased was addicted to liquor and few years after the marriage they got to run into rough weather. Few months prior to 24. 6. 2000, the appellant left the house of the deceased and started staying with her parents in village Bania-Khilinda. The deceased made sincere effort to bring her back to his house, but failed. On 24. 6. 2000 the deceased again came to the house of the accused persons and approached the appellant to go back along with him to his house. The appellant refused to go and there was a quarrel between the appellant and the deceased which continued from 7 p. m. to 8 p. m. In that next morning dead body of the deceased was found lying under the 'mahua' tree adjacent to the house of the accused persons. Satyananda Patra, a home guard of that village reported the matter to the o. I. C. Deogarh Police Station, where after an U. D. case was registered and investigation was taken up. From the post-mortem examination, it was revealed that the cause of death of the deceased was homicidal and accordingly a case was registered for commission of offence under Section 302/34 i. P. C. and ultimately after completion of investigation, charge-sheet was filed against four accused persons including the appellant for commission of aforesaid offences.

(3.) PROSECUTION examined ten witnesses to bring home the charges but none was examined oh behalf of defence. Out of the ten witnesses examined on behalf of the prosecution, P Ws 1,3,4,6 and 7 turned hostile. PW2 is a witness to the quarrel between the deceased and the appellant and PW5 is a seizure witness. PW8 is the doctor, who conducted post-mortem examination and PW9 is the Investigation Officer. PW10 is the daughter of the appellant and the deceased, who was sole eyewitness to the occurrence.