DHULA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by Dhula who has been convicted under Section 302. I. P. C. by the Sessions Judge of Udaipur, and sentenced to transportation for life.

(2.) A report was made in chowki Chavnu on 22nd of March, 1954, by one Mawa mina of village Veerpura. In this report, he said that Dhula accused of Veepura had killed his wife Mst. Kuri with an axe, and had run away. Information of this was sent by Head Constable Abdul Rahim of the Chowki to the police station, Sarara. Head Constable Abdul Rahim went to the spot at once, and started search for the accused who was, however, not found. He also arranged to keep watch over the dead body till the superior officers arrived on the scene.

(3.) THE prosecution case briefly was that the accused suspected the character of his wife, and there had been some quarrel between him and his wife sometime before the incident. Consequently the accused killed her with an axe on the evening of the 22nd of March, 1954, in the court-yard of his own house. The dead body of mst. Kuri was found in the court-yard of the house when the police reached the scene. It is said that Mst. Punji, a daughter of the accused, aged about 10 or 12 years, was present when the murder took place. She made a statement Ex. P-1 in the committing Magistrate's Court. In that statement she said that her father had gone away to work in the fields in the morning after taking stale bread left over from the previous night. He returned in the evening. At that time, her mother was cleaning grain. Her father asked her mother for food. She replied that she was going to prepare food, and that he could not he so hungry as to be dying of hunger. On hearing these words from his wife, the accused picked up an axe which was lying in the court-yard, and struck his wife a number of times on the neck. The result was that Mst. Kuri died on the spot. Mst. Punji began to cry and shout on which people turned up. The accused, however had run "away immediately after hitting the woman leaving the axe behind in the court-yard. Mst. Punji said that among those who arrived were her uncles Dungri and Teji. She further said that there used to be quarrels between her father and her mother and that her mother had removed her Peenjri on which also there had been a quarrel between her parents. A Peenjri is an ornament for the foot, which is always worn by married women and is not removed except when the husband is dead.