MOON DAS Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant herein has been convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for committing murder of his wife within a period of less than three months of the marriage. The conviction has been recorded vide impugned judgment dated 12.5.2008 passed by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge (F.T.C. No. 4), Kamrup, Guwahati in Sessions Case No. 301(K) of 2007. On being convicted under section 302 of the IPC, the appellant has been sentenced to undergo Imprisonment for Life and also to pay fine of Rs. 5,000/- with default stipulation of further six months R.I. Being aggrieved by the conviction and sentence, the accused has preferred this appeal. Heard Mr. D. Mazumdar, learned counsel for the appellant and Ms. B. Bhuiyan, learned Addl. PP, Assam. We have also gone through the impugned judgment and the prosecution evidence, proffered in the trial court.

(2.) The defence case was of total denial. However, in his statement under 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code the accused took a plea that at the relevant time he had gone to a provision store nearby. However, neither the name of the owner of the said grocery shop was disclosed nor any evidence in defence was adduced to establish that at the time of the incident the victim was alone in the house and the accused was away from his house, i.e., the place of occurrence.

(3.) The gist of the prosecution case is that the victim woman had married the accused after eloping with him on 25.1.2007. They married each other in a temple. After their marriage the accused took a rented house owned by PW 6. The incident took place at about 1.30 p.m. on 4.4.2007 in the bedroom of the accused. Hearing the outcries of the victim woman, the land lady and other tenants rushed to the tenanted room of the accused and found the victim woman with burn injuries and thereafter on their advice the husband shifted his wife to the Gauhati Medical College Hospital, where she succumbed to the burn injuries on 10.4.2007.