S. Muralidhar, J.

1. This is an appeal by Umesh Kumar against the judgment dated 5th June 2017 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (‘ASJ’), North District, Rohini Courts in Sessions Case No. 59027 of 2016 convicting him for the offence under Section 302 IPC for committing the murder of his wife Pinki and the impugned order on sentence dated 4th July 2017 whereby he was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 25,000/- and, in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period of one year.

Case of the prosecution

2. The case of the prosecution was that on 1st February 2016, information was received by the Central Police Control Room (‘CPCR’) at 11.34 am that at Swaroop Vihar, Gali No.2 “ek lady ne phasi laga li”. The message was transmitted to two police vans - CMD-58 and TGR-53A - at 11.44 am on the same day. The police van CMB-58 reached the spot at 12.06:59 pm. The report received from the said police van on 1st February, 2016 at 12.17: 37 was as under:

“Call is true. Lady pinki w/o umesh age 25 sal, r/o above hai usne gale me chunni se fanda laga kar farsh par padi hai kahan par band kar fanshi lagai hai nahi pata hai Husband Umesh ne bataya ki mai apne bache ko chhodne school gaya tha aur abhi aya hoon. SHO with staff mouka par c/r infd. 01/02/2016 12.34:32 cat ambulance, n-19, mouka par he dead declare kar diya hai”

3. On the basis of the said information, DD No.11A was recorded. Immediately preceding the above recording of information by the CPCR was the call made to the police by Bhuvneshwar Gupta (PW8), the brother of the Appellant. He stated, in his examination in chief, that he made a call at number 100 and told the police that “meri bhabhi ne phasi laga li hai.” From the Call Detail Record (‘CDR’) of the phone used by the Appellant (Ex.PW-6/H), it is seen that he too made a call to the police at 11.56 am.

4. As soon as the above information was received from the police van which reached the spot, Assistant Sub-Inspector (‘ASI’) Rajbir (PW16) along with other staff of the Mobile Crime Team attached to the Police Station (‘PS’) Maurya Enclave, Delhi reached Khasra No.1303, Gali No.2, Swaroop Vihar, near Ideal Public School, Swaroop Nagar where he met ASI Dalip Singh (PW 26) and other staff. PW16, in his deposition, stated that on reaching the place of occurrence, they found the dead body of a female aged about 30/-32 years with head towards the east and legs towards the west. A piece of plywood of the sofa was found broken and lying in the said room. One chappal and broken pieces of bangles were found near the dead body. To the south side of the dead body, one chappal and yellow colour chunni was found near the dead body.

5. ASI Dalip Singh (PW26), in his deposition, stated that even before the crime team reached the spot, he had recorded the statement of Vinod Kumar Gupta (PW9), father of the deceased Pinki, wife of the Appellant. That statement was marked as Ex. PW9/B. PW26 stated that the Appellant was present in the ground floor of the house. His custody was entrusted to Constable Rajender Kumar (PW18). The rukka was prepared and handed over to Constable Vijay (PW19) for the purposes of registration of an FIR. After PW19 returned to the spot and handed over a copy of the FIR and the original rukka to Inspector B.R. Meena (PW27), the Investigating Officer (‘IO’) who had by then reached the spot.

6. From the evidence of Constable Rajender Kumar (PW18), it is seen that he along with the IO took the dead body of the deceased Pinki to BJRM Hospital where the MLC was prepared. In his cross examination, PW18 confirmed that during this time “Umesh was present at the spot during this period and was in my custody. The accused was not arrested at that time.” He further mentioned that while leaving the spot for the hospital, he “handed over the custody of the accused to Constable Vijay.” In his evidence, Constable Vijay (PW19) states that the dead body was