Man convicted of murdering wife’s paramour acquitted by High Court of Karnataka

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A man convicted to life imprisonment by a Trial Court has been acquitted by the High Court of Karnataka as it found the motive for the murder had not been proved. He was accused of murdering the victim for allegedly having an illicit relationship with his wife.

But the Court said that the evidence provided by the sole witness, a neighbor, was only hearsay. “No other person except the neighbour-cum-landlord of the accused was examined by the prosecution to prove the alleged illicit relationship.

The said landlord also has not stated about having personal knowledge of illicit relationship between the deceased and PW-5 (wife of accused). He has only stated that he has heard about the same. His hearsay evidence would not strengthen the case of the prosecution.

Thus, even on the aspect of motive also, the prosecution could not place cogent materials to hold that there was motive behind the alleged commission of crime,” the Division Bench of Justice HB Prabhakara Sastry and Justice CM Joshi said in their judgment acquitting the 48-year-old accused.

The accused was sentenced to imprisonment for life by a Sessions Court in Bagalkot in 2021 for allegedly murdering a person in 2016. It was alleged that the deceased was sleeping in the house of the accused and suspecting he was having an affair with his wife; the accused dropped a grinding stone on his head and murdered him.

The convict approached the HC against the Trial Court’s conviction. The police case was that the accused’s wife was in the bathroom while the murder took place. During the cross examination in the Trial Court however, the wife said that her husband was away in Pune at the time of incident.

She also stated that a few people were fighting on the street and the deceased was one of them. As he was injured, some people brought him inside the house and that was the reason there was blood inside her house. She also claimed that her husband came back from Pune a day later. The HC also noted that the prosecution has failed to prove that the accused was in his house on the day of the murder.

“Since there are no materials to show that the accused was present in his house on the night of the incident and the main defence taken from the accused side was that he was not present on the said day in his house, then, the benefit of doubt that has arisen in the case of the prosecution about the presence of the accused in the place of the incident on the alleged date of incident has to be necessarily given to the accused.”

Acquitting the accused and ordering his release from prison, the HC said, “The Sessions Judge’s Court did not appreciate the evidence placed by the prosecution on all these aspects in their proper perspective. Thus, it has led it to pass an erroneous judgment. Since the prosecution has failed to prove the alleged guilt against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the impugned judgement warrants interference at the hands of this Court.”