MANGALIA Vs. KING-EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant Mangalia alias Mangali has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Allahabad of the offence under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, and has been sentenced to transportation for life.

(2.) The case for the prosecution was briefly this: On the morning of 7 February 1926, at about 9 a.m., people collected at the house of the appellant on hearing an alarm raised by the deceased, the wife of the appellant. People entered into the house of the appellant and found his wife lying murdered in a pool of blood and the accused with a sickle in his hand. The accused admitted before the witnesses examined in the case that he had killed his wife.

(3.) A report was made at the thana and the case was investigated and sent up. The appellant throughout stuck to the story which he had told on the first occasion he was questioned and it was this. He had gone away to purchase some corn and came back earlier than was expected; on arrival at his house he found, inside his own room, on a charpoy, his wife and the prosecution witness, Uma Shankar, the zamindar of the village, both in the act of adultery. He tried to catch hold of Uma Shankar but he slipped away and ascending the roof of the house fled into his own, which adjoined the house of the appellant. There was a tickle near at hand, the appellant picked it up and killed his wife with it.