IMPORTANT POINT
The court held that the appellant's actions constituted culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part II IPC due to lack of premeditation and presence of heat of passion.

JUDGMENT :

Per Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal, J.

(1) This criminal appeal filed by the appellant-accused under Section 374(2) of Cr.P.C. is directed against the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 20.03.2020, passed by learned Sessions Judge, Bemetara, District - Bemetara (C.G.) in Sessions Trial No. 50/2019, whereby the appellant-accused has been convicted for offence under Section 302 of IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment with fine of Rs.100/- and, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo additional imprisonment for three month.

(2) The case of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 14.08.2019 at about 07:00 am, the appellant assaulted his wife Reena Bai Sahu (now deceased) by means of wooden stick, by which she suffered grievous injuries and died, thereby, committed the offence under Section 302 of IPC.

(3) The further case of the prosecution, in a nutshell, is that the accused/appellant used to assault his wife Reena Bai (deceased) suspecting that she had done black magic on him. He admitted to his father-in-law, Ramkumar Sahu (PW-8) on 11.08.2019. After that on 14.08.2019 at 07:35 am, Chandrabhushan Sahu from village Chilphi called Ramkumar (PW-8), father of the deceased and told him that Reena Bai was very serious, then he came to village Chilphi with his wife Seetabai (PW-10) and saw that his daughter was lying dead, due to injuries on her head and forehead. On asking, he came to know that the accused/appellant had killed his wife-Reena Bai by assaulting her by means of a wooden stick. On the information of Rajkumar (PW-8) Dehati Nalsi (Ex.P-8) was registered and Dehati Merg Intimation (Ex.P-7) was registered. FIR was registered vide Ex.P-24 against the appellant-accused. Inquest proceedings were conducted vide Ex.P-03. The dead-body of deceased was sent for postmortem examination and in the postmortem examination report (Ex.P-10), Dr. Avinash Markandey (PW-9) opined that the cause of death seems to be severe blood loss due to brain damage as a result of ante-mortem injury to the head and nature of death is homicidal. Thereafter, appellant-accused was arrested vide Ex.P-21 and his memorandum statement was recorded (Ex.P-17). Seizure of articles were made vide Exs.P-11 to 14 and sent for chemical examination to FSL. In FSL report (Ex.P-33) human blood was found on stick (article-F).

(4) The prosecution in order to prove its case examined as many as 16 witnesses, exhibited 33 documents and Articles A-1 to A-4. Statement of the appellant under Section 313 of CrPC was recorded wherein he denied guilt, however, he examined none in his defence and did not bring any document in his support either.

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

(6) Learned counsel for the appellant submits that there is no eye witness in this case and the case is based only on the circumstantial evidence, taking the case of the prosecution as it is, only offence under Section 304 Part-II of IPC is made out against the appellant, as the appellant has no motive to cause death of the deceased. Thus, the case of the present appellant falls within the purview of Exception 4 to Section 300 of IPC and the act of the appellant is culpable homicide not amounting to murder and, therefore, it is a fit case where the conviction of the appellant can be converted/altered to an offence under Section 304 Part-II of IPC and, further, since the appellant is in jail since 06.09.2019 i.e. more than 04 years, taking into consideration the period he has already undergone, the appellant-accused be released from jail forthwith. Hence, the present appeal deserves to be partly allowed.

(7) Per-contra, learned State counsel s