Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 23: Division Bench of High Court has set-aside the life-imprisonment awarded to Kamlesh Kumar, who happened to be husband of the deceased.
After hearing Advocate Anmol Sharma for the appellant whereas Government Advocate Sumit Bhatia for the UT, the DB observed, “having ringside appraisal of the facts and circumstances of the case and the quality and not the quantity of the evidence on record, we are of the considered view that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove the circumstances by leading evidence beyond any reasonable doubt”.
“We do not find it a case where prosecution has proved and established the circumstances firmly and conclusively by leading evidence beyond any reasonable doubt, which form a chain complete in itself, leading to a hypothesis which is inconsistent with the innocence of the appellant”, the DB said, adding “the other circumstances—the deceased was seen going to the forest with her goat merrily; the conduct of the appellant rushing to his in-laws house instead of making search of his wife, who had not returned home till evening; the failure of the appellant to lead evidence to prove that at the time of commission of crime he was present at a place other than the scene of occurrence, would all pale into insignificance”.
The prosecution case was that on May 19, 2014, the Police Station Pancheri received an information through reliable sources that a dead body of a lady namely Sushma Devi, wife of the appellant resident of village Katti Tehsil and district Udhampur was hanging with kail tree.
After hearing both the sides, the DB allowed the appeal and ordered that the judgment of conviction as also the order of sentence impugned in this appeal is set aside and the appellant is acquitted of all the charges. He shall be set at liberty forthwith, if not wanted in any other case.
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