Delhi High court judgment in an appeal filed by a person convicted for murder of his wife

December 6, 2017

A Bench of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice I. S. Mehta of Delhi High Court today pronounced Judgment in an appeal filed by the convict against charges of murdering his wife.

In the Judgment, in response to the argument of motive was unable to be proved, the court said that the trial court referred to the decision of the Supreme Court in Subedar Tewari v. State of U.P. AIR 1989 SC 733 wherein it was held that where the other circumstances were sufficient to point to the guilt of the accused then the mere absence of proof of motive would not prove fatal to the prosecution case.

Facts of the case
On 1st June 2012 a lady was found dead in Sector-23 Dwarka, Pochanpur Village, near Gulab Dharam Kanta. The landlord of the property told that he had let out his room to one Jaleshwar Majhi. In the said room the appellant was living wih his wife, the deceased, and her daughter for the past one month. When he came to collect rent on 1st June 2012, the room was found bolted from outside. A foul smell was emanating from it. On opening the room, he found that a female residing with the tenant was lying on the floor wrapped in a quilt. On reaching the spot, the police found the female dead. It is on that basis the FIR was lodged.

Injuries noted in the post-mortem report were as under:
"Body was highly putrefied. Body was swollen, greenish discoloration found all over, skin was peeled out at many places, moth larvae of one cm in length were crawling. Vagina and rectum were protruding out."

All the injuries were opined to be ante-mortem in nature and of the same duration. The death was opined to be homicidal.

On 5th June 2012, the convict was arrested. The version of the convict was his wife ran away with some boy. The convict had dropped his six month old daughter in the House of his brother at Himachal Pradesh. The convict said that :

"I am innocent. I have been falsely implicated in the present case. When I came to Delhi, along with my wife. Manju and minor daughter, I started to reside at Shahbad near Railway Fatak. The owner of the said house in which I used to reside was owned by one Pramod. 1 along with my family never resided at the house of Brahm Prakash Yadav. Nor I occupied the room in which dead body of my wife was found. My wife had already left the matrimonial house of her own and I was searching her. I went to the police station Sector 23 Dwarka for lodging her missing report but I was told by the police that I should search for my wife on my own. On the date of arrest, I was informed by the police that they have found dead body of my wife. However, I can say that I have not murdered my wife and I have been falsely implicated by the Police in this case."

On the basis of circumstantial evidences, the trial court convicted the accused. The Appellant claimed that that he never went to Himachal Pradesh of his own to leave his daughter with his brother and that it was the police who took him to Himachal Pradesh is falsified.

The High court concluded the judgment and dismissed the appeal with a reason that:
"For all of the aforementioned reasons, the Court finds that no grounds have been made out for interference with the impugned judgment and the order on sentence of the trial court."

Read the Judgment of Supreme Court dated 06.12.2017