The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal of a 28-year-old man convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 2016, upholding the life sentence awarded by a Nashik court. The case involved Shashikant Shantaram Tavare, who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend in a school classroom in Nashik after a fallout in their relationship.
Tavare and the woman, both from the same village, were in a relationship and had filed a notice for marriage. However, after her family persuaded her to withdraw the notice with a promise of marriage after her elder sister’s wedding – a promise that was not kept – events took a dark turn.
According to the prosecution, Tavare met the woman in a school classroom around 8.30 pm on May 18, 2016. There, he inflicted multiple injuries with a cutter on her throat and wrists, resulting in her death.
Boys in the vicinity who heard her screams rushed to the scene and alerted others. Her mother later found her in a pool of blood and heard Tavare admit he had killed her and intended to die himself.
Additional public prosecutor Kranti T Hiwrale argued that the 18 injuries, including deep wounds on her neck, were homicidal. Medical testimony and forensic evidence indicated the injuries could not have been self-inflicted.
Tavare’s lawyer, Ramesh Dube Patil, claimed the woman, under stress from her family’s broken promise, had proposed a suicide pact and that Tavare, having injured himself first, became unconscious. He contended that her wounds might have been self-inflicted.
However, the bench of Justices Sarang V Kotwal and Shyam C Chandak rejected this theory, highlighting that the woman was an MBA graduate with a stable job, and had no apparent reason to die by suicide. They noted that the injuries, including those involving the jugular vein and carotid artery, were consistent with homicidal assault.
The court further pointed to defensive wounds on her hands and witness accounts of her screams, which directly contradicted the claim of a mutual suicide pact.
Finding no merit in the appeal and ruling that the burden of explanation lay with the accused, who failed to account for the woman’s fatal injuries, the court concluded the prosecution had proved its case beyond doubt. The life sentence awarded by the Nashik Sessions Court was upheld.
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