- (1.) The appellant-accused as well as complainant has preferred respective appeals assailing the impugned judgment dated 27/6/2013 passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Rajgarh, District Churu in Sessions Case No.5/2007, whereby the appellantaccused Vinod Puri has been convicted for the offences under Section 302 and 304B coupled with Section 498- A of IPC and sentenced as under :- Under Section 498A IPC Three years simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs.1,000/- and in default to pay fine, further to undergo for one month simple imprisonment. Under Section 304B IPC Life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.1,000/- and in default to pay fine, further to undergo for one month simple imprisonment. Under Section 302 IPC Life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.5,000/- and in default to pay fine, further to undergo for six month simple imprisonment.
(2.) In nutshell, the factual aspect relating to the FIR Ex.P.1 reads as under:- image-1 and it is a case of double murder, in which appellantaccused Vinod Puri has allegedly killed his wife Smt. Kavita and his seven months old infant Aditya, whereas appellant-accused Vinodi Puri has taken a plea that deceased Kavita was audacious and under frenzy of mental disorder, she strangulated her infant and inflicted blade injuries on her own body as well as on the body of the baby Nitin and assaulted upon the appellant-accused with blade causing injuries to him as well and a defence under Section 97 coupled with Section 100 of I.P.C. has also been pleaded vide contentions of memorandum of appeal as mentioned in para g(ii).
(3.) Heard the arguments advanced by both the sides and perused the record. Learned counsel for the appellant has argued that the learned trial Court has erroneously passed the impugned judgment, story of the prosecution is totally false and twisted the story of suicide into alleged killing falsely, ignoring the fact that the accused-appellant was assaulted by his mentally depressed wife with blade and badly injured him. FIR of the prosecution is ante-date and there is no evidence in respect of demand of dowry soon before the crime and the couple was having two kids Aditya and Nitin and was living happily. Deceased and her sister were married in the family of the accused with two real brothers with full understanding in a very simple customary way, where dowry was not a consideration, neither it was demanded, evidence of the prosecution is nothing but a plethora of concocted falsehood, While referring the evidence of several witnesses, learned counsel has submitted that almost all important witnesses have made improvements in their evidence by contradicting the Parchabayan. The appellant-accused was badly injured by his deceased wife and after sustaining severe blade cuts, the appellant-accused became unconscious, who was later found in an unconscious state, so the story of the prosecution that the appellant-accused is guilty of killing his wife and small kid are false and are not trustworthy. Relying upon the verdicts R.V.E. Venkatachala Gounder vs. Arulmigu Vishwesaraswami, 2003 AIR(SC) 4548 (1), Javed Masood & Anr. vs. State of Rajasthan, 2010 CrLJ 2020, L/Nk. Meharaj Singh vs. State of U.P., 1995 CrLJ 457, Dr. Sunil Kumar Sambhudayal Gupta vs. State of Maharashtra, 2011 CrLJ 705, Tarsem vs. State of Punjab, 2009 AIR(SC) 1454(1), Paulmeli & anr. vs. State of Tamil Nadu, 2014 AIR(SCW) 3634, Anvar P.V. vs. P.K. Basheer & Ors, 2014 AIR(SCW) 5695, Devinder @ Kala Ram & Ors. vs. State of Haryana, 2012 AIR(SCW) 5731, Radhey Shyam vs. State of Rajasthan,2014 Supp AIR(SC) 773, Sujit Biswas vs. State of Assam, 2013 CrLJ 3140, Joydeb Patra & Ors. vs. State of W.B., 2013 AIR(SC) 2878, Budh Singh vs. State of U.P., 2006 AIR(SC) 2500, learned counsel for the appellant has contended that the prosecution has failed to establish aspect of demand of dowry. Appellantaccused is innocent. He tried his level best to protect his small son, but under frenzy of depression, deceased Kavita did not listen and badly injured his son with blade and attacked upon appellant-accused, who too was inflicted with serious blade injuries and subsequently became unconscious and Kavita choked herself, so there was no involvement of the appellant, neither that aspect could be contemplated against the appellant, because appellant-accused is innocent and learned trial Court has committed grave injustice in passing the impugned judgment, which is liable to be set aside and has further requested to acquit the appellant-accused after reversing the impugned judgment. Per contra, learned counsel for the complainant Rameshwardass, while pressing the appeal preferred by him against the acquittal of coaccused Smt. Mahakori, has contended that there is enough incriminatory evidence against the co-accused mother-in-law of the deceased, but the learned trial court has committed error, while acquitting her, whereas she is liable to be convicted because her role was apparently there in committing the offence of double murder by killing her daughter-in-law and grand-son, so the appeal presented by the complainant be accepted and the respondent Mahakori be also convicted with same sentence. Learned public prosecutor representing the State has contended and has fortified the view expressed by the counsel of the complainant, whereas the learned counsel for the respondent Nos.2 and 3 has said that the acquittal of respondent Smt. Mahakori is correct but the learned trial court has wrongly convicted respondent Vinod Puri without any positive evidence, deceased Kavita killed her child under mental disorder and even inflicted blade injuries upon Vinod Puri and throttled herself, so the impugned judgment, requires to be modified to the extent of acquitting respondent Vinod Puri and judgment relating to Smt. Mahakori needs to be affirmed being correct.;