- (1.) "The appellant is aggrieved by the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court of Allahabad dated 15th December, 2009 (Reported in (2010 (3) ALJ (NOC) 291) passed in Criminal Appeal No. 3302 of 2003 confirming the conviction and sentence imposed on him under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. While convicting the appellant the Trial Court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment apart from fine of Rs. 10,000/- with default clause of one year rigorous imprisonment.
(2.) It is a case of circumstantial evidence.
(3.) According to the prosecution, the appellant was living alone with his wife, the deceased Suman in his first floor portion at A 353, Awas Vikas Colony, Tiwaripur, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh and the ground floor portion was lying vacant. They got married on 17th September, 1999. The occurrence took place on the intervening night of 30th and 31st January, 2001 at around 04:00 a.m. 3.1 As per the contents of the First Information Report, P.W. 1 one Chandra Mohan Pandey, brother of the deceased received information about the death of his sister at 7:30 a.m. through P.W.2 Ram Prakash Dubey who is none other than his cousin who was also living in the same locality where the appellant and the deceased were living. P.W. 2 reached the spot along with his mother at 9:30 a.m. and at 10.05 a.m., F.I.R. came to be registered. It was alleged in the F.I.R. that his sister was murdered by the appellant with the help of his friend. 3.2 Based on the above F.I.R., after the registration of the crime though the close relatives of the appellant, as well as, one Ramzan were implicated as accused by supplement and additional charge-sheets for offences under Sections 498A, 304B read with Section 120B as well as Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, ultimately the appellant was charged for the offence under Section 302 along with Ramzan. After trial, the trial court found that the appellant was the sole accused who was responsible for the killing of his wife and he alone was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment as referred to above. 3.3 As per the evidence of P.W. 6, Dr. V. V. Tripathi who conducted the post- mortem of the deceased, there were as many as 20 injuries on the body of the deceased and almost all of them were incised wounds. As it was a case of circumstantial evidence, the trial Court after assimilating all the evidence placed before it has identified the circumstances in order to find the appellant guilty of the offence, under Section 302 in killing his wife with severe injuries.;