The main legal point established in the judgment is the significance of motive in cases based on circumstantial evidence and the need for a complete chain of evidence to establish guilt.

SMT. ROSHAN DALVI, J. :- The appellant is the son of the deceased.

The appellant is Indian Soldier and serving in the Indian Military at Amritsar. At the time of the offence, he was on leave and residing in the same village Ningudge, Ajara, Dist : Kolhapur where his father, the deceased victim lived.

2. The charge against the accused is of having committed murder of his father by assaulting him with a stick on both hands and chest and thereby causing his death punishable under section 302 of the IPC. The offence is stated to have taken place at or before 6.30 a.m. on 25th July, 2001 at the house of the deceased in the above village.

3. The very first information about the crime was received from a Police Patil Baburao Kamble upon he having been informed about the dead body of the deceased lying in his house and having heard that he was murdered. Later the brother of the deceased one Prakash lodged the complaint.

4. The prosecution examined inter alia the wife of the deceased who first saw the dead body at about 6.30 a.m., the son of the deceased who saw the accused go out of the house of the deceased in the early morning hours, and neighbour of the deceased who saw the accused in the house of the deceased standing near the front door with a stick at about 3.30 a.m. on that day when he went to urinate outside his house in the middle of the night, the panch witness showing the spot of the offence, the panch showing the arrest of the accused and the seizure of his banian, the panch showing the recovery of the stick used in the commission of the offence at the instance of the accused from behind the door of his in-laws' house where he lived at that time, the panch who made recovery of the clothes of the deceased and being corroborated by the inquest panchanama, the Chemical Analyser's report and the Post-mortem Report.

5. The prosecution case is not based on an eye witness account though the evidence of the wife of the deceased makes an attempt in that direction. That evidence being an improvisation over her earlier statement, cannot be taken into account. That evidence being not considered, the prosecution case largely rests with the "last seen evidence" along with the factum of the recovery and identification of the dead body of the deceased and the aforesaid corroborative material.

6. It is the case of the prosecution that there was a strong motive present to the mind of the accused in the commission of the crime. This motive has been shown to be the insistence of partitioning the family property including the house and the farm in favour of the accused during the life time of the deceased, which never came to be, until the death of the deceased. The prosecution has sought to show also that the accused was considerably hot tempered resulting in Chapter cases as well as criminal cases being filed against him by his family members as well as his wife respectively resulting in warrants being served upon him. It is an admitted fact that the accused was on leave from the Army at the relevant time. The prosecution has shown the factum of the death of the deceased by stick blows resulting in as many as 5 fractures as evidenced from the P.M. Report.

7. It is contended on behalf of the appellant that that there are no eye witnesses to the murder alleged to have taken place. Hence, the prosecution case is based entirely on circumstantial evidence and all the circumstances do not show a link/chain pointing unmistakably to the appellant/accused. The Advocate for the appellant has argued that the learned trial Judge has based the conviction merely upon the evidence of the wife of the deceased and the recovery of the stick which was the weapon used in the offence. He contends that conviction merely on such basis cannot be sustained. This he has argued on the premise that the blood stained clothes as well as the stick which were recovered have not been properly sealed and hence the procedure which is mandatorily required to be follow