The central legal point established in the judgment is the application of legal principles from the cases of Arjun vs. State of Chhattisgarh and Arumugam v. State to determine the categorization of the offence under Section 304 Part I of the IPC.

JUDGMENT :

Goutam Bhaduri, J.

1. This criminal appeal preferred by the appellant under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is directed against the impugned judgment dated 31.7.2021 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Mungeli in Sessions Case No.10/2020, whereby, the appellant has been convicted for commission of offence under Section 302 of the IPC and sentenced to undergo RI for life and pay fine of Rs.2000/- , in default of payment of fine, to undergo additional RI for one year.

2. Prosecution case, in brief, is that an FIR was lodged by Shivratan Dhurve (PW-1) to the effect that the appellant/accused was married to his daughter - Mamta (deceased) 6 years back. On 14.12.2019, his daughter along with her husband (appellant) and their children had come to his place at Danavkhar. They were living a happy married life. On 16.12.2019, after having their dinner, all the family members went to sleep and the appellant, his wife and their children also went to sleep in their room. At about 11:30: PM, the father (PW-1) heard loud noise of Marpeet and screaming coming from the room of the appellant. Having heard so, he climbed over the deck of their room and saw that the accused was assaulting his daughter by way of a Crowbar (Sabbal). He shouted at the appellant to stop the assault and thereafter, he awoke all the family members. When the family members reached the spot, they saw that the wife of the appellant was dead and it was revealed that since the appellant had a doubt that the wife had illicit relations with another man, he assaulted her on his head and face with the crowbar and thereby, killed her. The dead body was subjected to the postmortem and in the Postmortem Report-Ex.P/20, the Doctor opined that the death was homicidal in nature. Subsequently, when the villagers arrived, the accused admitted before them that he had killed his wife. Subsequent to that, the Police arrested the accused and crowbar (Sabbal), jeans pant and sweater were seized vide Ex.P/7 from the possession of the appellant. The seized articles were sent for FSL examination of which the report remained unreceived.

3. After recording the statements of the witnesses, the charge sheet was filed. In order to bring home the offence, the prosecution examined as many as 10 witnesses and exhibited 22 documents. During the course of trial, the appellant abjured his guilt and claimed to be tried. On the basis of the statements of the witnesses and extra judicial confession made by the appellant, the appellant was convicted as mentioned in para 1 of this judgment. Hence, this Appeal.

4. Learned counsel for the appellant would submit that the eye-witness in this case is the interested witness and the allegations have been falsely attributed to the appellant. He would submit that apart from the husband and wife, their children were also present in the room, however, their statements have not been recorded. He would further submit, without prejudice, that even if the case of the prosecution is admitted, at the most, the appellant could have been convicted for offence punishable under Section 304 Part I of IPC as his case is covered within Exception 4 to Section 300 of IPC since the incident happened in the spur of moment and on great provocation. However, despite having knowledge about this fact, the prosecution has not collected any evidence in this regard. Lastly, learned counsel for the appellant prays that the impugned judgment may be set-aside and the appellant may be acquitted from the said charge.

5. Per contra, learned counsel for the State would oppose the above submissions and submit that in view of the statement of Shivratan Dhurve (PW-1), who is an eye-witness in the case, and the extra judicial confession made by the appellant before Narottam Singh (PW-2), Purushottam (PW-3), Ishwar Singh (PW-4) and Ram Das (PW-5), there is no scope left to evaluate the evidence as the same is also supported by the Postmortem Report-Ex.-P/20, which shows the nature