Man serving life sentence for killing wife let off by HC

On the basis of circumstantial evidence, a Sessions Court had found Pandurang Deokar, a farmer, guilty of killing his wife Nirmala, whose body was found in their house at Tembhurni village in Solapur district on September 7, 2003.

The victim's mother had filed a police complaint saying that Pandurang used to torture his wife and forced her to sell 17 acres of land she had purchased in Malegaon so that he could clear his debts. She alleged that he had killed Nirmala. The couple was married for nine years and had two children.

However, High Court observed, "Hardly any evidence has surfaced on record for establishing the presence of the appellant in the room at the relevant time. Having regard to the same, the remaining circumstances, which can be said to have been established by the prosecution witnesses, cannot be said to be leading to the sole inference of the appellant being perpetrator of the said crime."

"Needless to state that in the absence of such an evidence regarding the presence of the appellant in the said room in the night, takes away potential, if any, in the circumstances of the incident occurred in the room of the appellant," observed Justice P D Kode and Justice V M Kanade recently.

"Since finding of guilt is based on circumstantial evidence, the circumstances established by the prosecution must form chain of circumstances leading to sole inference of guilt of the Appellant i.E. Thereby excluding every reasonable possibility of the perpetrator of crime being somebody else".

"Since, such a chain of circumstances is not established by the evidence, we are unable to sustain the finding of guilt arrived by the trial court," the judges further remarked. (More)