- (1.)Confirmation Case No. 2/12 and Criminal Appeal No. 376/12 are being disposed of by common judgment since they arise out of judgment and order dated 30.5.2012 passed by Adhoc Additional Sessions Judge1, Nagpur in Sessions Trial No. 461/11 by which the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 376/12 (hereinafter referred to as "the accused") has been convicted for the offence punishable under Sections 302 & 309 of Indian Penal Code and sentenced to death and to pay a fine of Rs.3,00,000/ (Three Lakhs) and in default to suffer R.I. for five years for the offence punishable under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code and to suffer R.I. for one year and to pay a fine of Rs.500/, in default to suffer S.I. for one month for the offence punishable under Section 309 of Indian Penal Code. Out of the fine amount if recovered, amount of Rs.2,50,000/ was ordered to be forwarded to the District Legal Aid Committee and Rs.50,000/ to State of Maharashtra.
(2.)Briefly, the case of the prosecution is as under :
The accused was residing at Jagruti Nagar along with his wife Pranita, daughter Shreya, his parents and two brothers PW.7 Anup and PW.8 Ajay and their family members. The accused had a minor daughter by name Shreya, aged 13 years. On 7.4.2011 all the family members took dinner and went to bed in their respective rooms. At about 3.30 a.m. on 8.4.2011 the family members heard shouts of Shreya "Save me, Save me". All the family members woke up and were frightened. They went towards the room of the accused. All of them gave call to accused and there was no response from inside. As such, brother of accused PW.7 Anup brought iron crowbar and broke open the door of the room of the accused. All of them noticed that Pranita, the wife of the accused and Shreya were murdered and accused was having multiple injuries on his person. PW.7 Anup had a talk with the accused and he gave pant of the accused to him since the accused was in underwear. In the said pant Anup noticed one chit which he read and kept it under the bed. Anup immediately reported the matter to police on phone and Ajay carried accused for first aid to Mayo Hospital with the aid of neighbour. Police Constable Shivlal Chhotelal Gour recorded the statement of Ajay at Mayo Hospital and informed the incident to Jaripatka Police Station. PW.19 PSI Dhurve rushed to the spot, prepared spot panchnama and found two knives, one iron crowbar, blood stained clothes and one chit. The same were seized under spot panchnama (Exh. 36). Thereafter the statement of Anup was recorded by PSI, Jaripatka (Exh.113 ) pursuant to which the FIR (Exh. 114 printed FIR) was registered under Sections 302 & 309 of Indian Penal Code. The dead bodies were forwarded to Mayo Hospital for postmortem. The statement of the accused was recorded by the Investigating Officer. Natural writings from register of grocery shop of accused were seized. At the time of conducting spot panchnama photographs were also taken. The accused was in hospital till 17.06.2011. On the same day he was arrested. His specimen handwritings and signatures were obtained in the presence of panchas and his blood sample was seized. The muddemal articles were sent for chemical analysis and the documents seized were sent for opinion of handwriting expert. The statements of several witnesses were recorded. The Investigating Officer also requested Executive Magistrate PW.18 Vinod Meshram to record statement of the accused since there were serious injuries on his person. The statement of the accused was recorded by PW.18 on 20.4.2011. After completion of the investigation, chargesheet was filed against the accused in the Court of J.M.F.C., Nagpur for the offences punishable under Sections 302 & 309 of Indian Penal Code. Since the offences were exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the case was committed to the Court of Sessions, Nagpur.

(3.)The accused pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. His defence is of total denial. In Sessions Case No. 461/11 the prosecution examined 20 witnesses and produced several documents to prove the charges against the accused. The statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code was recorded. The accused did not lead any evidence.