HC upholds life sentence for wife's murder in a 1993 case

Observing that there was a clinching evidence supporting the prosecution's case, the Bombay High Court has upheld the life sentence of a man convicted for murdering his wife.
The incident had taken place in 1993.
The Mumbai sessions court convicted Shyam Kadam on February 15, 2008, for killing his wife Mohini and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, Kadam suspected that his wife was having illicit relations with another man.
Deciding his appeal, the division bench of Justices Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi and Vijaya Tahilramani said last week that there was enough evidence against him.
"The nail marks found on the person of the convict were that of his wife who offered resistance when she was being strangulated," the court noted in the judgement.

Shyam married Mohini in 1989 after the two fell in love. He went abroad for some period during which his wife worked at a garment factory.

On his return, he received an anonymous letter alleging that Mohini had illicit relations with the owner of the factory.
On September 5, 1993, after yet another quarrel, he strangulated her at the couple's house here.
A doctor, prosecution witness, had said in his deposition that all the injuries found on Kadam's body were nail-marks of his wife.
"No reasonable or plausible explanation is offered by the appellant about the presence of abrasions and scratch marks on his body," the High Court noted.

At the time of the wife's death, no third person was present in the house and therefore the onus to explain the circumstances leading to the death fell on the accused, the judges said.
"As no explanation is offered by the appellant, this is a fit case where no other inference except that of the appellant being responsible for her death can be drawn," the HC said, adding that "incriminating circumstances proved by the prosecution" were of "clinching nature".