Sanjiv Khanna, J.

1. Appellant-Ashok Kumar by the impugned Judgment dated 31st July, 1998 stands convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) for the murder of his wife Anita Jain.

2. The undisputed and accepted position is that the appellant got married to Anita Jain on 27th April, 1990 and within 26 days of marriage i.e., on the morning of 23rd May, 1990, she was found dead in the bedroom of her matrimonial house.

3. The aforesaid facts have been established from the testimonies of Kaushalya (PW-1), Mahinder Prasad (PW-8) and Sunil Kumar (PW-13), mother, father and brother of the deceased, respectively. We shall be referring to their statements in detail subsequently. At this stage it is sufficient to reproduce question number 11 and the answer given thereof by the appellant in his statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1971:-

“Q.11 It is further in evidence that on 23.5.90 at about 9.30 a.m. some relatives of yours went to the house of Mahinder Prasad and told him that Anita had died while sleeping. What do you say?

Ans. It is correct.”

4. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that the impugned judgment deserves reversal