Conviction for murder is sustainable when corroborated by consistent eyewitness testimony, recovery of the murder weapon, and forensic evidence matching the blood group of the deceased on the accused's clothing.

Oral Judgment (Per Smt. V.K. Tahilramani, J.):

1 The appellant original accused has preferred this appeal against the judgment and order dated 11th November 2008 passed by the learned 5th Ad-Hoc Additional Sessions Judge, Sewree, Mumbai in S.C. No.487 of 2007. By the said judgment and order, the learned Sessions Judge convicted and sentenced the appellant under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to suffer R.I. for life and to pay fine of Rs.5000/-, in default of payment of fine R.I. for two years.

2 The prosecution case can briefly be stated as under:

(i) Deceased Hanumanta was the father of the appellant. Hanumanta had two wives, the first wife was Samadhan. The the appellant was the son of Samadhan. The second wife of the deceased was PW-2 Laxmi. Samadhan along with appellant left the house of her husband Hanumanta when the appellant was about one year old. Thereafter Samadhan did not come back. However, once in a while the appellant used to meet Hanumanta. The appellant had a grudge against his father as according to him his father had abandoned him when he was one year old.

(ii) The incident took place on 13.2.2007. On that day at about 6.35 p.m. the appellant assaulted his father Hanumanta with a knife in front of O.N.G.C. building and Hello Communication Center. This was situated at Mukund Nagar, Dharavi, Mumbai. PW-1 ASI Mohite and PW-6 Police Constable Nangare were on patrolling duty in mobile van. When they reached near O.N.G.C. building, they saw that a crowd of people had gathered in front of Hello Communication Center. They went there in their mobile van. They got down from the said mobile van. They saw the appellant was giving blows with knife on Hanumanta who was lying on the road. ASI Mohite caught hold of the right hand of the appellant in which hand the appellant was holding a knife. ASI Mohite snatched the knife from the right hand of the appellant. They put the appellant in the mobile van. They took injured person in the mobile van to the hospital. In the hospital the injured person i.e. Hanumanta was declared dead. ASI Mohite then lodged FIR (Exhibit 10). Thereafter, investigation commenced. The appellant was arrested. The blood stained clothes on the person of appellant were seized under panchanama. Knife which was found in the hand of the appellant was also seized under panchanama. The dead body of Hanumanta was sent for postmortem.

(iii) PW-10 Dr. Dere conducted postmortem on the dead body of Hunumanta. In all he found 12 injuries, out of them 11 injuries were stab wounds and one was incised wound. Out of the stab wounds five stab wounds were on the chest and one stab wound was on the stomach due to which intestines had came out. The rest of the injuries were on the other parts of the body like inter coastal space, clavicle region, lumber region etc. After completion of investigation, chargesheet came to be filed.

3 Charge came to be framed against the appellant under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and under Section 37(i) (a) read with Section 135 of Bombay Police Act. The appellant pleaded not guilty to the said charge and claimed to be tried. The defence of the appellant is of total denial and false implication. After going through the evidence adduced in this case, the learned Sessions Judge convicted and sentenced the appellant as stated in para-1 above. Hence, this appeal.

4 We have heard the learned Counsel for the appellant and the learned APP for the State. We have carefully considered their submissions, facts and circumstances of the case, judgment passed by the learned Sessions Judge and the evidence in this case. After carefully considering the matter, for the below mentioned reasons, we are of the opinion that the appellant assaulted his father Hanumanta with a knife and caused his death.

5 Conviction is mainly based on the evidence of three eye-witnesses i.e. PW-1 ASI Mohite, PW-6 Police Constable Nangare and PW-7 Raghu Shetty. PW-1 ASI Mohite ha