HC reverses trial court’s acquittal order in 2003 attempt to murder case

HC reverses trial court’s acquittal order in 2003 attempt to murder case

Swati Deshpande@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:14.03.2021 

A youth, barely 20-yearsold, who two decades ago stabbed a judge’s wife thrice, found his 2003 acquittal for attempt to murder reversed by the Bombay high court on Thursday for being “perverse.’’ A bench of Justices Ravindra Ghughe and B U Debadwar of the Aurangabad bench of the HC said it was “shocked by the frightful conclusion of the trial court’’. It said “to justify a conviction under section 307 of the IPC, it is not essential that an injury capable of causing death should have been inflicted”. The HC said, “The intention of the accused has to be gathered from circumstances like nature of the weapon, motive of the accused, parts of the body where injury was caused, nature of injury and severity of the blows.’’ Then a teen, “apparently furious’’ at having been denied entry to the judge’s house the previous day when he had asked for a spade to allegedly carry out some masonry work, he showed up the next afternoon, and entered when the door was ajar. He walked to the kitchen, questioned the judge’s wife for having sent him away and before she could answer, whipped out a button knife—a rampuri—and stabbed her in her stomach and under the ribs.

It was four hours before a doctor saw her and a few more before surgeries were performed. The doctor deposed that two injuries were life threatening and had she not received “immediate treatment she would have died’’. She survived. Her husband, a civil judge at Nanded, was not at home.