Nagpur: A woman from a backward community winning a gram panchayat seat in the open category and subsequently becoming sarpanch sparked a political rivalry that eventually led to the murder of her husband in Yavatmal’s Parwa village in 2018, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court observed while affirming life terms awarded to 10 accused.
The court noted that police received information about the assault at about 2.05 pm, immediately rushed to the spot, shifted the body and completed preliminary entries before registration of the FIR. Rejecting these contentions, the high court held that the delays had been satisfactorily explained by the investigating officer of Awdhootwadi police station.
Doctors recorded as many as 20 injuries on the victim and opined that death occurred due to “shock and hemorrhage following multiple stab injuries with evidence of cut-throat injury.” The bench found substantial corroboration from medical evidence.
A division bench of Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Nivedita Mehta dismissed five connected appeals challenging the January 20, 2020 judgement of the additional sessions judge, Yavatmal, in a special (atrocity) case. The prosecution relied on the testimony of 18 witnesses, along with spot and inquest panchnamas, memorandum statements, weapon recoveries, forensic evidence and chemical analyser reports. Upholding the convictions, the court also affirmed the finding regarding the common object of the unlawful assembly under Section 149 of the IPC, observing that members of such an assembly can be held liable if they were aware that the offence was likely to be committed in pursuit of the group’s common object.
The court noted that blood of group AB, matching that of the deceased, was detected on several seized articles, including soil samples, clothing and weapons.