Thane court acquits woman, paramour of her husband’s murder

Thane: A Thane court has acquitted a woman and her paramour accused of murdering her husband in 2018, noting the prosecution failed to prove the case, which was based on circumstantial evidence.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal, in the order passed on Friday, said that though there is material to suggest that there was an extra-marital relationship between both the accused and their conduct after the incident was suspicious, there is no sufficient material to conclude that they had committed the victim’s murder.

The accused, Priya Gopi Naik (34) and Mahesh Govind Karale (32), had been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, administering a stupefying substance, and causing disappearance of evidence.

The prosecution alleged that on December 28, 2018, the two accused murdered Priya’s husband, Gopi Kisan Naik, in Thane city over their illicit relationship. The offence involved the administration of a stupefying substance to the deceased, followed by the murder and subsequent actions to cause the disappearance of evidence.

A police sub-inspector had received a call from the Civil Hospital, reporting that Gopi Kisan Naik had been admitted by his wife for an alleged accident in the Waghbil tunnel, after which she left.

Following the victim’s death, a postmortem examination indicated that he had been assaulted on his head with a blunt weapon and strangulated, leading to the registration of a murder case against the accused, who were alleged to have attempted to mislead authorities by claiming the death was due to an accident, the prosecution told the court.

The judge said it would be apposite to mention that the entire case of the prosecution is based on the circumstantial evidence, wherein it is incumbent that every circumstance ought to be fully established.

“These facts must be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis,” the court said.

“The circumstances should be of conclusive nature and tendency, and must exclude every other hypothesis and chain of evidence so complete that it should not leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion that is consistent with the innocence of the accused and that it must show that in all human probability the act must be done by the accused,” it observed.

Even if the aspect of an extra-marital affair is borne out, to make out that this was the motive for the crime, the prosecution must bring about the fact that this relationship was known to the deceased and on account of it, there used to be quarrels between the accused wife and the victim, the court said.

The evidence of the witness is too vague on these aspects and as such, it would not be safe to accept it as a motive of the crime, the court said.

“The case of the prosecution as regards administering of sleeping pills and phenyl thus loses significance, since nothing of this sort was found in the body of the victim,” it further said.

“If the comprehensive attention is paid to the injuries sustained by the victim, the defence of the accused persons is rather more probablised than the case of the prosecution as regards throttling,” the court said.

Moreover, if the accused persons had committed the murder, there does not appear any reason why they would take the victim to the hospital, because had he then survived, it would be of further serious consequence to them, it noted.

“Thus, it cannot be said that it is made out beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased died a homicidal death and not because of falling in the bathroom or suffering an accident,” the court said.

“Upon assessment of the entire evidence, although there is material to suggest that there was extra marital relationship between both the accused and that their conduct after the incident was suspicious, there is no sufficient material to conclude that they had committed murder of the victim or administered any stupefying substance to him or for that matter, had committed the offences alleged by the prosecution,” it added.