SC uphold verdict in 34-yr-old murder case

The Supreme Court has scuttled a man’s bid to come out of the charges of killing his wife 34 years ago.

The top court debunked his story that the wife killed herself on the ground that it is very difficult for a person to use a double barrel gun to kill herself and because it was “impossible” for the woman to have shot herself seven times with the gun.

A bench of justices R K Agrawal and Abhay Manohar Sapre termed the claim of suicide put forth by the husband, Tribhuvan Singh, and his brother Chandra Bhawan Singh as “wholly unbelievable”.

“In our view, it is not possible for a person to commit suicide by firing seven gun shots one after the other on his/her body with a DBBL gun,” the bench said.

However, the court said, one can commit suicide by firing one shot with a pistol but that this was not the case made by the appellants.

It also said Tribhuvan falsely stated before the police that Satyawati committed suicide because he wanted to divert their attention.

The circumstances leading up to the death of the young bride was also not explained, given that the burden lay on them as per the mandate under Section 109 of the Evidence Act, the court said.

The top court upheld the Allahabad High Court’s 2014 order awarding life term to the two brothers for killing Satyawati on March 18, 1984.

Abuse over dowry

The lower court had found that she was killed as her family members could not fulfil the demand for a motorcycle as dowry. Within eight days of her marriage in 1981, Satyawati had returned to her parents’ home in Fatehpur. She was persuaded to come back to her matrimonial home in 1984. But within three days, she died of gunshot injuries.

The high court had earlier acquitted Satyawati’s mother-in-law of charges.