S.K.GUPTA, J. - (1.) This criminal appeal has been preferred by the accused appellant Mahavir Singh against the judgement and order dated 5.12.1983 passed by Sri P.C. Joshi III Addl. Sessions Judge,Bijnor in Session Trial No. 123 of 1983 convicting the appellant Mahavir for the offence punishable under Section 302 I.P.C. and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life for the said offence.
(2.) The story as unfolded by the prosecution is that about three months prior to the date of the incident i.e. 24.2.83, Kewal Singh, father of the accused Mahavir had died. Thereafter a dispute had arisen between Mahavir (appellant) and his brother Dharamvir, as a result of which Mahavir used to ask his wife not to cook food for the entire family. On 24.2.83 at about 8.00 A.M. while the informant Phulloo, r/o village Jothimma, P.S. Sherkat, District Bijnor, who was posted as a Chaukidar in a different village namely Jothimma, was going to ease himself to the forest, he overheard few women of the village of Mukarpur talking about the murder of Kela by his husband Mahavir with an axe. On hearing this, he proceeded to the house of Mahavir, he saw many people gathered there. Mahavir was tied to a tree in his courtyard and the dead body of his wife Kela was lying with bleeding injury on her forehead inside the Kotha of his house. The axe by which the injury was inflicted was lying near the dead body. He was informed by P.W.2, Sheeshram(younger brother of appellant Mahavir) that at around 8 O' clock in the morning, the wife of Mahavir was cooking food for the entire family, on seeing this, the appellant got enraged and inflicted axe blow on her forehead causing her death. The appellant thereafter caught hold of Mahavir with the help of Balbeer ( P.W. 3) and tied him to a tree. The informant went to the police station after leaving the Chaukidar of the village Mukarpuri at the spot to lodge FIR.
(3.) The F.I.R. was lodged at 10.00 A.M. i.e. after two hours of the incident. The distance between the police station and the place of occurrence is said to be around 10 -12 Kms. The Investigating Officer is said to have reached the place of occurrence at 12.30 P.M. During the investigation of the case, S.I.Balbir Singh( P.W. 6) prepared the site plan Ext.Ka -8,inquest report of the dead body, seizure memos relating to seizure of the blood stained axe, blood stained and simple soil from the place of incident. Dead body was sealed and was sent for the post -mortem examination. The post -mortem examination of the dead body was concluded on 25.2.83 at Bijnor.;