JITENDRA NATH CHAUDHURI, J. - (1.) This appeal arises out of a conviction of the appellant under S.302, I.P.C. and sentence of imprisonment for life passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Alipore.
(2.) The prosecution case, in short, is as follows :- On 20th/21st Jan.1982 at 170/52, Lake Gardens within the P.S. Lake Gardens the accused, D.K.R.K. Rao committed murder of Sm. D. Shesharatnam. On 21-1-82 Gour Chandra Dey (P.W.2) the informant in this case informed the police. He is the landlord of premises No.170/52 Lake Gardens where he resides with his family on the 1st floor. In the ground floor of his house at the relevant time there were two tenants, viz., D. Rama Krishna Rao who occupied the eastern portion having two rooms and the another in Sri V.V. Sitapati Rao (PW.4) who occupied the eastern portion one room flat. Sri Rama Krishna Rao took the rooms on rent in the month of Oct.1981 and brought his wife on 5th Nov.,1981. Since then they were residing in these rooms. In the morning of 21-1-82 at about 6 a.m. accused came in front of the informant's flat and called him. When the informant came out, the accused reported to him that his wife was seriously ill. Informant told him to bring a doctor and contact V.V. Sitapati Rao as the informant required to go to the toilet. The accused went away. At about 6.45 a.m. V.V. Sitapati called the informant down. He came down and found one doctor (P.W.3) of Emergency Doctor's Service with the accused and V.V. Sitapati in the drawing-cum-bed room of the accused. The informant remained outside the room. On his query, the doctor told the informant that Sm. D. Sheshratnam, wife of the accused was dead and that he was unable to ascertain the cause of death. Informant then advised the accused to go the P.S. and inform the police about the incident. At about 8.10 hours when the police came he was called in by the police. The informant went inside and noticed some marks of injuries on the front of the neck of the deceased Smt. Shesharatnam. It is an unnatural death and not a case of natural death, as reported by the accused earlier. He suspected it to be a case of murder committed by the accused. The information lodged by P.W.2 was treated as the FIR in this case and was marked as Ext.2/b. On the basis of that statement a formal F.I.R. was drawn up by the police, and Lake P.S. Case No.43 dt.21-1-82 was started. The case was investigated by P.W.10 Mihir Kr. Gupta. He held the inquest of the deadbody and recorded the statements of the witnesses and also seized some articles from the place of occurrence. He also sent the body for post-mortem. He drew up the formal F.I.R. He obtained the post-mortem report and also got the plan of the place of occurrence prepared. He also obtained the Chemical Examiner's report. After completion of the investigation he submitted the chargesheet on 10-1-82. He also arrested the accused.
(3.) The prosecution examined 10 witnesses. Two witnesses were examined on behalf of the defence. The defence case is one of alibi and that the deceased in his absence might have taken some poison.;