Wife’s Body Found Buried At Home; Jharkhand HC Upholds Husband’s Life Term After He Failed To Explain Her Homicidal Death

The appellant was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, Simdega, under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sentenced to life imprisonment and five years’ rigorous imprisonment, respectively, with the sentences to run concurrently

The prosecution case was that the appellant’s wife, Amrita Dang, was murdered and buried in a room of the house where the couple lived.

Police exhumed her body from the house on 23 July 2013; the post-mortem examination found a cut to the throat and attributed death to cardio-respiratory failure caused by the injury

The appellant denied the occurrence and pleaded innocence in his examination under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but adduced no evidence in his defence

On appeal, he challenged the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence, including the absence of a proved motive and the reliance on Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act

Sections 302 and 201 IPC address, respectively, murder and causing disappearance of evidence of an offence.

Under Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, the burden of proving a fact especially within a person’s knowledge rests on that person; however, the provision does not displace the prosecution’s primary burden to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

It may apply once the prosecution has proved foundational facts supporting a reasonable inference, particularly where a homicidal death occurs within the privacy of a home and the accused is expected to explain circumstances especially within his knowledge

The Court also relied on *Trimukh Maroti Kirkan v. State of Maharashtra*, (2006) 10 SCC 681, concerning the evidential significance of an accused’s failure to explain a spouse’s injuries or death in the shared dwelling

The Court found that the deceased lived with the appellant as his wife, that they were together in the house on the night before the occurrence, and that her body was buried in a room of that house.

Medical evidence established a homicidal death caused by a sharp-cutting injury to the throat

The appellant offered no explanation in his Section 313 statement for the death, merely denying the occurrence and asserting his innocence

Applying Section 106 consistently with the prosecution’s continuing burden of proof, and the principles governing homicidal deaths within the home, the Court treated the appellant’s failure to explain the circumstances as an additional link in the chain of evidence

It rejected the appeal grounds and found no error in the trial court’s decision

It confirmed the appellant’s convictions and sentences under Sections 302 and 201 IPC and dismissed the appeal; any pending interlocutory applications were also disposed of