Anandamay Bhattacharjee, J. - (1.) The accused-appellants have been convicted under section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code for committing the murder of Neelam Jain alias Pinky and under section 201/34 for causing evidence of the aforesaid offence to disappear and while each of them has been sentenced to imprisonment for life and to pay h fine of Rs. 5,000/- for the first-mentioned offence, each of them has also been sentenced to imprisonment for three years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- for the second offence.
(2.) The deceased Neelam Jain alias Pinky was the wife of the accused no. 2 Virendra and the accused no. 1 Santosh Rani Jain is Virendra's mother and the accused no. 3 Rabindra is Virendra's elder brother. That Neelam used to stay and was staying with the accused persons in their flat being Flat No. 1 on the sixth floor of the eleven-storied building being 3B, Camac Street and that her dead body was found on the footpath in front of that building in the early morning of 7th September, 1980 are not disputed. But while the prosecution case is that Neelam was murdered by the accused persons, the defence version, as would appear from the trend of cross-examination and from the statements of the accused persons under section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code, is that Neelam committed suicide. Before us also, the learned Counsel for the accused-appellants has very strenuously urged that Neelam died as a result of fatal suicidal jump from the top of the eleven-storied building and the learned Counsel has submitted that Ext. C, which is a letter written by the deceased Neelam to her husband, the accused Virendra, must be taken to have clinched the matter.
(3.) Ext. C appears to be a letter written in Hindi containing three paragraphes and at the bottom of the letter, the name of the writer appears to be written in English a "Pinky". The evidence of PW-23, the Hand Writing Expert and of PW-24, Chimanlal, Pinky's father-in-law, go to prove that Ext. C was written by the deceased Neelam alias Pinky. Even Pinky's brother PW-5 Srikrishna Madhogharia and his wife PW-8 Premlata could not deny Ext. C to have been written by Pinky and in their statements to the Investigating Officer, PW-45 they appeared to have admitted Ext. C to have been written by Pinky. In the first paragraph of the letter, Pinky has stated that whatever she said on the day before, she was made to say so by the sisters-in-law and she has promised therein that she would never tell a lie again in her life. In the second paragraph Pinky has requested her husband Virendra to marry again assuring that she would also become happy thereby if that makes the mother-in-law happy. It was, however, added in the said paragraph that the husband must see that the new wife should not be made to suffer as Pinky had suffered. In the third paragraph it is stated that as she could not bear it any more, she was committing suicide but that no one is to be blamed therefor. It was, however, added further that Pinky wished her husband Virendra to remain happy and that she would some time come back again to see him. I would like to think that such a promise as to never tell a lie again in her life, such an assurance to become happy if the husband married again, and the further assurance that she would come back again to see him are hardly consistent in a note written immediately before one was going to commit suicide.;