Criminal Appeal no- 4235 of 2013
High Court of Himachal Pradesh
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr Tarlok Singh Chauhan, Hon’ble Mr Chandet Bhusan Barowalia
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 22nd Dec 2017
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
BACK STORY
The accused was deployed as Sepoy at Babina Catt. when he met the victim and was in a relationship with her. They were in regular touch over the phone and when the victim stayed with the accused at his place of deployment, they were sexually involved. The parents of the deceased came to know about their relationship and strictly opposed the same. The mother of the deceased paid an amount of Rs. 25,000 to the accused and asked them to not be in contact anymore. The matter was hidden by the family to save the family’s reputation.
On 23rd June 2011, the accused went on a leave called the deceased. He asked her to meet at the Awah Devi temple, from where the deceased when missing. The family searched for her but it all went into vain. On 7th Sept 2011, the deceased family filed a complaint and the accused was arrested on 9th Sept 2011. He confessed his crime and showed the police the location where he had dumped the deceased body after killing her.
The body was exhumed, only the skeletal remain with some clothes and gold ornaments were found. The deceased’s mother identified the clothes and ornaments. The skeletal remains were sent for postmortem and DNA profiling along with the blood sample of her mother.
FORENSIC REPORT
The femur bone of exhumed body was sent for DNA profiling while the rest of skeletal remain was sent to IGMC, Shimla for postmortem. As per the autopsy report, the sex was identified as female, the age was estimated to be between 20-22 years and the height was estimated around 160 cms. No injury was found on the remains, so the cause of death couldn’t be estimated. The DNA profiling report of FSL, Junga, confirmed the identity of the deceased after matching the blood of her mother.
JUDGEMENT
The accused Sushil Kumar Nayak was found guilty under section 302 of IPC and was punished with Life imprisonment.