Mumbai High Court has acquitted a Soldier, who killed his wife while intoxicated while serving in the Army, after 27 years.
The accused soldier had appealed to the Bombay High Court against the Sessions Court order. The High Court took his appeal seriously and acquitted him. Justice Prasanna Varale and Justice N. R. Borkar’s bench has given this verdict.
The accused soldier in the case was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in 1998. The soldier was convicted by a sessions court of strangling his wife to death. At the time of the incident, the accused jawan was posted in the Indian Army at Danapur in Patna. The sessions court had also convicted the jawan of molesting his wife along with the murder charge and sentenced him to one year imprisonment. The order was challenged by a soldier in the high court. It was heard by a two-member bench.
It is difficult to believe that the death of the accused soldier’s wife was a ‘murder’. The High Court ruled that the government’s claim could not be accepted and acquitted the soldier of the charge of murder. Defendants told the court that there were no signs of beatings on the woman’s body, while the government party claimed that the accused had strangled his wife under the influence of alcohol. The High Court has given its verdict after hearing the arguments of both the parties.
Prosecutors allege that in July 1995, a drunken man strangled his wife, Monica, to death. When the family members of the deceased went to the hospital, they found foam coming out of the woman’s nose and mouth. A case of murder was registered against the jawan in this case. Jawan was later sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in 1998.