Bengaluru: HC upholds life term for forest watcher who strangulated wife

BENGALURU: The Karnataka high court has upheld the life sentence awarded by a trial court to a watcher in forest department, who had allegedly killed his wife for not bringing Rs 10,000 from her father that he needed to get a permanent posting.

A division bench upheld the June 30, 2012 verdict of the fast-track court at Madhugiri, which had held Ramakrishna guilty and imposed life term and a fine of Rs 10,000 for murder of his wife Vanajakshi on November 21, 2010.

“It is impossible to believe that the deceased Vanajakshi herself committed suicide by hanging by means of saree as the ceiling from where her dead body was hung was seven feet high, which would make it impossible for her to have hung herself from such height without presence of even a stool or the ladder,” the bench has noted while re-appreciating the evidence.

The trial court had held Ramakrishna guilty and imposed a two-year jail term and a fine of Rs 5,000 each for offences under section 201 (destruction of evidence) and section 498 A (cruelty to wife).

The prosecution case was that on November 22, 2010, Thungotappa, the father of the deceased Vanajakshi had lodged complaint with Madhugiri police station saying that his son-in-law had telephoned him at 4.30pm the previous day saying that his wife Vanajakshi had committed suicide .

According to him, after receiving this information, when he reached his daughter’s matrimonial home at Hosahali at about 5.30pm, his son-in law Ramakrishna was not there and there were little abrasions on the left side of the neck of body of his daughter which was hanging in the kitchen.

He had further told the police that on November 13, his daughter, a mother of two children Majunatha (5) and Indusree (1 and half years), had come to his house after her husband physically harassed her to bring Rs 10,000. He had advised her to return and convince her husband that the amount will be adjusted in 10-15 days’ time.

Thungotappa had further claimed that at the time of his daughter’s marriage, Rs 10,000 cash, 10 gms gold chain, a pair of ear studs and a pair of hangings were given apart from incurring on marriage expenditure.