BALBIR THAPA Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant-Convict Balbir Thapa, hereinafter referred to as the accused, has assailed the judgment dated 23.12.2014/27.12.2014, passed by Additional Sessions Judge-I, Solan, District Solan, Himachal Pradesh, in Sessions Trial No.19-NL/7 of 2012, titled as State of Himachal Pradesh v. Balbir Thapa, whereby he stands convicted of the offence punishable under the provisions of Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) According to the prosecution, on 13.1.2012 at about 8/9 p.m., accused murdered his wife deceased Poonam, with an electric wire. Thereafter, he informed her parents that the deceased had committed suicide, by hanging herself from a fan in one of the rooms in his house. Motive of crime being a quarrel, which took place same day at about 3 p.m., between the husband and wife.

(3.) While convicting the accused, trial Court found (a) the deceased to have died not as a result of hanging but strangulation, which fact was proved by Dr. Gagan Jain (PW-8), (b) accused was lastly seen in the company of the deceased, to have been established by Phool Chand (PW- 4) and Arshad Khan (PW-16), (c) marks of injury found on the body of the accused, were only suggestive of the fact of struggle having taken place at the time of commission of crime, (d) recovery of weapon of offence, i.e. "wire of press" by the police vide Memo (Ex.PW-3/A) and absence of blood/skin tissue thereupon to have be sufficiently explained by the Expert (PW-8), (e) plea of alibi taken by the accused to be false and not believable,.