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| Justice Prevails: Man gets life imprisonment for killing wife | | Court takes serious note of defective investigation, issues notice to IO | | Early Times Report
Rajouri, Aug 21-The accused was convicted and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment for strangulating his wife to death by a local court here, which also took serious note of `unprofessional’ and `defective’ investigation by the police.
While convicting the accused, the Additional Sessions Judge Rajouri Sanjay Parihar conveyed his displeasure with the way the investigation of the case has been conducted. The court observed that after receipt of the postmortem report the Investigation Officer (IO) failed to get an explanation from the doctor that whether the death of deceased was homicidal or suicidal rather it appears that IO did not bother to go through the postmortem report but concluded the challan as a case of suicide accepting theory of accused.
“IO in this case has shown unprofessional attitude towards the case of such a nature”, the court observed adding, “He did not bother to find out from the accused as to circumstances that led to the death of deceased”.
“Inspector Purshtam Lal and Nisar Hussain ASI both shall be put to notice to show cause as to why can not they be proceeded for defective investigation and showing unprofessional attitude to crimes relating to women”, the court observed further.
Additional Sessions Judge convicted the accused Jagdish Raj son of Basant Ram resident of Khagrot Tehsil Nowshera after eleven years of trail and held him guilty of killing his wife beyond any shadow of doubt. However, keeping in view the long ordeal of trial which the accused has undergone, his age and fact that he accused is handicapped, the court observed that the cases does not fall in the category of rarest or rear cases which may have attracted the provision for death sentence.
After going through the evidence on the record and hearing Public Prosecutor Mirza Mukhtar Ahmed and Defence counsel Deepak Sharma, Advocate, the Additional Sessions Judge observed that the Court has no hesitation in holding that circumstances that have been proved when connected in series do led to the reasonable conclusion pointing towards guilt of the accused to have strangulated deceased to death during the night of May 17-18, 1998. “The accused is therefore held guilty of charge of culpable homicide amounting to murder under section 302 RPC and is thus pronounced guilty”, the court held.
In the twenty-eight pages judgment, the Court cited several high court and Supreme Court judgments to elaborate the conviction of the accused.
The case was pending disposal before the Court since February 24, 1998. Initially the police had filed a case of suicide and had booked the accused for offence under section 306 RPC for abetment of suicide. However, during the course of hearing medical expert opined that the death of deceased Dinesh Kumari wife of accused could most probably have been caused by strangulation only and that strangulation can only be homicidal or accidental. The file remained subjudice before the court of principal sessions judge Rajouri till March 30, 2009 following which it was transferred to the court of Additional Sessions Judge.
The court subsequently altered the charge and put the accused on trail for offence for killing his wife.
As per the prosecution story on May 18, 1998 the complainant Chuni Lal reported to police station Nowshera that his daughter Dinesh Kumari, who was married four years back with Jadgish Raj son of Basant Ram of Kangrot, was being ill-treated and harassed by husband and in-laws and were demanding dowry.
The complainant had alleged that six months prior to her death, Jaddish Raj made an attempt to set the deceased ablaze by pouring Kerosene. Fed up with the attitude of her husband, Dinesh Kumari committed suicide by tying knot of cord around her neck and died.
On the basis of the report a case was registered under section 306 RPC and a challan was produced in the court.
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