The Bombay high court (HC) has upheld the life sentence of a man who killed his wife within four years of their marriage because she could not satisfy his repeated demands for dowry so he could buy a field.
The Bombay high court (HC) has upheld the life sentence of a man who killed his wife within four years of their marriage because she could not satisfy his repeated demands for dowry so he could buy a field.
A division bench of Justices PV Hardas and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi upheld the conviction of Kolhapur resident Gajanan Khade, 39, observing that he had failed to prove his theory that his wife, Aruna, had committed suicide by hanging herself.
A sessions court at Ichalkaranji had convicted Khade on September 4, 2007, on charges of murder and cruelty. The sessions court had acquitted his parents and sister for lack of evidence. Khade then filed an appeal before the HC claiming innocence.
Khade and Aruna got married on June 29, 2002. According to additional public prosecutor SD Shinde, four months after their marriage, Khade and his family members started harassing and ill-treating Aruna for not giving them the money they had demanded to buy the field.
On July 31, 2006, Khade called Aruna's brother, Suresh Chougule, saying that she was unconscious and was being taken to nearby hospital. She was declared dead on admission. Her death certificate said the cause of death was asphyxia due to ligature of the neck along with a head injury. The same day, Aruna's brother lodged an FIR against Khade, his parents and sister-in-law.
During the trial, the prosecution examined only four witnesses, Aruna's brother, a neighbour, the investigating officer and the doctor who conducted the post-mortem. The doctor said there were external injuries on Aruna's body, and the distribution of injuries was suggestive of them being inflicted deliberately. It was a case of homicidal death as these injuries could not have been self-inflicted, he opined.
Defence advocate Murtuza Najmi argued that it was a case of suicide and Khade was being framed. The judges disregarded the theory, saying that no evidence had been produced to show that his wife was had been found hanging. "It cannot be a case of hanging as there was no other article in the room except the cot and it was not possible for the deceased to hang herself, considering the height of the roof," observed the judges. Moreover, the defence failed to explain Aruna's head injury, which was also a cause of death.
Dismissing Khade's appeal, the bench observed, "Though the learned counsel for the appellant has strenuously tried to submit that it can be a case of suicide, we are not impressed by the submission."
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