JUDGMENT :

[Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.]

1. This criminal appeal filed by the accused-appellant under Section 374(2) of Cr.P.C. is directed against the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 06.02.2013, passed by the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge Katghora, District Korba (C.G.) in S.T. No.16/2012 (State of CG vs. Mohanlal Sharma), whereby the appellant-accused has been convicted for offence: under Section 302 of IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous life imprisonment with fine of Rs.1,000/- and, in default of fine, additional rigorous imprisonment for 06 months and also under Section 201 of IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 03 years with fine of Rs.500/- and, in default of fine, additional rigorous imprisonment for 03 months.

2. The case of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 27.04.2010 between 02:00 to 06:00, at Quarter No.B/278, Pragti Nagar, the accused-appellant committed murder of his wife, namely, Urmila Devi (hereinafter referred to as “deceased”) by strangulation and thereafter in order to screen himself from the said offence, hanged her dead-body from ceiling fan and, thereby, committed the offence under Sections 302 & 201 of IPC.

3. The further case of the prosecution, in nutshell, is that: in the intervening night of 26.04.2010 to 27.04.2010, deceased and accusedappellant were quarreling with each other with regard to purchasing of land at Bilaspur and, in furtherance therefore, accused-appellant assaulted deceased in front of their children, due to which deceased sustained head injury; thereafter, appellant went to sleep alongwith his younger son, namely, Rupesh in one room and his elder daughter, namely, Himalaya Kumari Sharma (PW-02) went to another room and deceased was sitting in front room; thereafter, in the morning at 07:00 AM, the appellant wake his daughter and asked him to see his mother (deceased) as to what happened to her and, in turn, she found her mother (deceased) hanging from the ceiling fan; thereafter, on the same day i.e. on 27.04.2010, at 08:50 AM, on the basis of information given by the accused-appellant marg. intimation was registered vide Ex.P/04 and panchnama was also prepared; thereafter, the dead-body of deceased was sent for postmortem examination and in the postmortem examination report (Ex.P/05), conducted by Dr. A.S. Kanvar (PW-05), it has been opined that cause of death of deceased is asphyxia due to strangulation and nature of death is homicidal in nature; furthermore, a suicide note was also recovered, which was marked as Q1 in the original record; the said suicide note was sent for examination to handwriting expert alongwith other documents/notes marked as S1 to S24 & N1 to N8 and the handwriting expert gave its report and opinion vide Ex.P/18 & P/19 respectively, wherein it has been stated that the person who wrote documents/notes marked as N1 to N8 have also wrote suicide note marked as Q1; thereafter, statement of witnesses were recorded and, after due investigation, the police filed charge-sheet in the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Katghora and, thereafter, the case was committed to the Court of Sessions. The appellant/accused abjured his guilt and entered into defence by stating that he is innocent and has been falsely implicated.

4. The prosecution in order to prove its case examined as many as 12 witnesses and exhibited 19 documents, whereas the appellant-accused in support of his defence has neither examined any witness nor exhibited documents.

5. The learned trial Court after appreciating the oral and documentary evidence available on record proceeded to convict the appellant for offence under Sections 302 & 201 of IPC and sentenced him as mentioned herein-above, against which this appeal has been preferred by the appellants-accused questioning the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence.

6. Mr. Vikas Pandey, learned counsel appearing for the appellant submits that the learned trial Court is absolutely