Judgment on Board

Per Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice

Heard Mr. Rajesh Jain, learned counsel for the appellant as well as Mr. S. S. Baghel, Govt. Advocate for the Respondent/ State and Mr. Rajesh Kesharwani, Advocate along with Ms Shrijita Kesharwani, learned Counsel for the Respondent No. 3.

1. The present appeal under Section 415 (2) of BNSS, 2023 has been filed by the appellant against the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence dated 14/02/2025 passed by learned Sessions Judge, Rajnandgaon (CG) in Sessions Case No. 80/2021, whereby the appellant has been convicted and sentenced in the following manner:-

2. Brief facts of the case are that the deceased Hemlata Jade is the wife of the appellant. They were resided together along with their children. On 29.03.2021, in the night, deceased Hemlata Jade vomit and then a quarrel took place between the appellant and deceased and then the deceased proceeded towards Baadi of one Dhariyar Shah. The appellant catched her and assaulted by wooden club on her head and other part of her body, which which she received injuries and fell down. The appellant dragged her towards his house and let her down on the Baranda. He conceived her saree and his shirt. The incident was witnessed by their daughter (PW/2) Sarojani. In the next morning, the appellant took his wife to the Manpur Hospital, where she was declared brought dead. Murg intimation was sent from the hospital to the Police and then murg report (Ex-P/13) was recorded. The enquest of the dead body of the deceased (Ex-P/2) was prepared in presence of the witnesses and then the dead body was sent for its post-mortem to Community Health Centre, Manpur. Dr. Govind Kaushik (PW/5) conducted the post-mortem of the dead body of the deceased and gave his report (Ex-P/9). He found injuries on the body of the deceased and opined that the cause of death are excessive bleeding due to head injury which are antemortem in nature. Nature of death are suspected antemortem. Spot Map (Ex-P/3) was prepared by the Patwari and (Ex-P/18) was prepared by the Police. Blood stain and plain soil, broken peace of bangles have been seized from the spot vide seizure memo (Ex-P/7). FIR (Ex-P/14) was registered against the appellant for the offence under Section 302 of IPC. The appellant was arrested on 31.03.2021 and his memorandum statement (Ex-P/4) was recorded. Based on his memorandum statement, one wooden club has been seized vide seizure memo (Ex-P/5). The saree of the deceased and his full shirt have also been seized vide seizure memo (Ex- 6). The blood stain and plain soil, broken peace of bangles seized from the spot, wooden club, saree and full shirt, seized from the appellant were sent for its chemical examination to State FSL, Raipur, from were report (Ex-P/17 B) was received and according to the FSL report, human blood was found on blood stain soil, saree of the deceased and shirt of the appellant. The blood was also found on broken peace of bangles (Article-C) and wooden club seized from the appellant (Article-E). The statement of the the prosecution witnesses and victim under Section 161 have been recorded and after completion of usual investigation, chrge-sheet was filed against the appellant for the offence under Section 302 of IPC before the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Mambagarh Chowki. The case was committed to the court of learned Sessions Judge, Rajnandgaon for its trial.

3. The learned trial Court has framed the charge against the appellant for the offence under Section 302 of IPC. The appellant denied the charge and claimed trial.

4. In order to prove the charge, the prosecution has examined as many as 10 witnesses. Statement of the appellant under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. has also been recorded in which he denied the material appears against him, plead innocence and submitted th