Judgement

JAGANNADHADAS, J. : This is an appeal by special leave. The appellant Deonandan Mishra (Deonandan Misir.) who was a stenographer to the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, Patna, has been convicted under S. 302, Penal Code, for having committed the murder of his second wife, Mst. Parbati Devi, on the night of the 3rd/4th September, 1953 and sentenced to transportation for life. The deceased was married to the appellant in or about the year 1941 and was his second wife.

As appeals from the subsequent events, she was considered to be a woman of loose morals. She appears to have been forsaken by her husband as also by her father in or about the year 1945 and to have sought shelter in the Anath Ashram at Gaya. Through the intervention of the Secretary of the Ashram and with the consent of both the husband and the father, she got re-married to one Nand Lall of Punjab in December, 1945. After a stay of about an year and a half with Nand Lall in Punjab, she appears to have left him on account of alleged ill-treatment.

She came back to the Anath Ashram at Gaya in June, 1947, but left it again in October, 1947. What happened thereafter is not clear from the evidence and