Mukul Gopal Mukherjee

1. WE have exhaustively dealt with the facts of the present case in our judgment dated 17/7/1989 which may be treated as a part of the present judgment too. The appellant was found guilty by the trial court on the basis of circumstantial evidence that the appellant killed his wife Pratima even though the motive for the murder was not clinched. It came out in the evidence not only in the first information report but also from the testimony of several witnesses that the appellant suffered from leprosy and was also suffering from inanity for sometime past. The appellant while passing through the road, talked aimlessly to the passers-by and sometime rushed out to beat them. The appellant had no means to maintain his wife and children and did not have any landed property either. The victim, Pratima used to live at the house of her father with the children but sometime she used to come to the house of the appellant with the children. 7/8 days prior to the incident the appellant brought his wife, Pratima and the son and daughter at his house from the house of his father-in-law. Despite the fact that the appellant did suffer from leprosy for a period of 7/8 yea