EMPEROR Vs. SAKHARAM MANAJI VANJARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused Sakharam Manaji Vanjari was tried for the murder of Vithi, wife of Bhika Gangaram, and was acquitted by the Sessions Judge of Nasik. This is an by Balak Hum, Sessions Judge at Nasik. appeal by the Government of Bombay under Section 41.7 against the acquittal.

(2.) Vithi was a young woman aged 18 who lived with her husband Bhika Gangaram at the village of Wadgaon, a few miles from Deolali. Her husband worked as a cartman at Deolali. On the 8th of September, the husband says, Vithi came in the morning to Deolali and left him his food and fodder for his bullocks and a message that she would return in the evening with his dinner. After his work he returned to Deolali Station at 3 P. M. expecting her to arrive. She did not come. He went home and found that she had not returned home after her visit to Deolali that morning. He searched for her that night and next morning without success and at 4 P. M. on the 9th learnt that her corpse had been found in the bed of a nalla between Wadgaon and Nanegaon on the way from Deolali. He went there with the Wadgaon Patil who sent for the Nanegaon Patil as the place was within the boundary of the village of Nanegaon. He then went back to Wadgaon in the evening and learnt from the women folk, that Yama had a clue to the murder. He found Yama at his house at 4 P. M. and after much persuasion Yama told him that Bhika Raoji had said that accused and Pandu had committed the murder. He looked for Bhika Raoji, but could not find him and returned to the scene of the murder at 11 P. M. By that time the Nanegaon Patil had arrived and later about 2 A. M. the Sub-Inspector came there. The Sub-Inspector made an inquest in the morning of the 10th. He did not take the statement of the husband till the afternoon after he had gone on to Wadgaon. He did not find Yama, Bhika, Pandu and the accused till the 11th. On that evening he arrested the accused.

(3.) Now there is no doubt that Vithi was murdered in the Nalla bed. Her throat was cut. There was much blood on the ground near the corpse and there were other marks of violence. Broken pieces of bangles and of a necklace were lying 9 or 11 paces from the corpse and the body had been dragged from there to the place where it was found. The motive for the murder was not robbery, for the woman s ornaments had not been touched. The Kasota, however, had been loosened and there can be no doubt that the unfortunate woman had been ravished and murdered.