- (1.) JUDGMENT :- The present appellant stood convicted for an offence under Section 302, I.P.C. and had been sentenced to life imprisonment by an order of IVth Additional Sessions Judge, Saharanpur, dated 5-5-89 in Sessions Trial No. 144 of 1983. After presentation of the appeal the appellant was directed to be released on bail.
(2.) The appellant stood a charge for having killed his wife Usha Pandey in Room No. 17-A of Alka Hotel, Hardwar, in between 12 O'clock in the noon on 19-2-83 and 6.30 in the morning of 20-2-83. The prosecution case may be stated in brief as follows;A man and a woman had come to the Alka Hotel, Hardwar, at about 6.00 a.m. on 19-2-83 and asked for a room. They were allotted Room No. 17-A. The key was handed over to the man and he was asked to make entries in the hotel register. The man entered his name as S. K. Pandey son of T.N. Pandey of Sector 5, Aakam Bag, Lucknow, and indicated the number of occupiers as two. They occupied the room, tea was offered to them in their room and the man and the woman went out for a stroll at about 9.00 a.m. to come back at 12. On that very day, at about 5.00 p.m., the man came to the hotel counter and asked about some washerman. The washerman of the hotel, namely, Ram Saran was present there. The man was having a plastic basket with him and he gave certain clothes for pressing to the washerman. he also wanted that the washerman should wash a white kurta and deliver it back at 6.00 a.m. next morning. The washerman expressed his inability to do so and as such only the clothes for pressing were made over to the washerman with a direction to leave the pressed clothes at the counter which he would collect subsequently. The man left with the plastic basket and the white kurta and never come back. The next morning at about 6 or 6.30 the Hotel Manager asked Mahipal Gaurd to go to Room No. 17-A saying that the man of that room had not takes the pressed clothes. Mahipal came back and reported that room No. 17-A was locked from outside but the light was on inside. The Manager grew suspicious, called the bearers Chandan and Ashok and guard Mahipal and went to Room No. 17-A and found it locked. By force the door was pressed and through the small opening he peeped into the room and saw the woman, who had accompanied the man, lying face upward on the cot. Only her face was visible and the body was covered by a quilt up to the neck. Froth was found coming through the nose, she did not respond to call. The Manager suspected that the man who gave out his name as S.K. Pandey must have killed his woman associate. Accordingly, he lodged a report at the Kotwali Police Station, Hardwar, at about 8.00 p.m. and indicated all the above facts therein and claimed that he and the bearers and the washerman would be able to identify that man. Upon this report of the Manager Bipul Ghosh, Case Crime No. 65 under Sections 302/201, I.P.C. was started and investigation was taken up.
(3.) During investigation police could find a tailor mark on a shirt that was given for pressing which was of a tailor at Fatehpur. The tailor was traced out and on the identification of the tailor the present appellant was apprehended and the identity of the deadbody was established, from the photographs taken of the deadbody, as that of Usha Pandey the wife of the appellant and the photographs were identified by the relations of the deceased. Investigation revealed that Manoj and Usha had stayed for a night in a hotel in Lucknow and than proceeded to Hardwar where Manoj had allegedly given a fake name and fake address but the entries were made by him and these writings were compared with an undisputed writing of Manoj by an expert who had opined that the writings were by the same man. Manoj was also put on a test identification parade wherein the hotel staff had identified him as the man who had occupied room No. 17-A under the pseudonym S. K. Pandey.;