27 years later, SC makes man pay for murder

MUMBAI: It has taken 27 years, but a husband who strangulated his 19-year-old wife and then left her to drown in a well will now be in jail to serve out his life sentence finally.
The Supreme Court last Friday upheld a majority ruling passed by the Bombay high court convicting Sahebrao Mohan Berad of Ahmednagar and cancelled his bail. He has spent less than a year in jail.
An SC bench of Justices Harjit Singh Bedi and Chandramauli KR Prasad gave a closure to a gruesome and fatal tale of cruelty to a young girl in rural India where atrocities and violence against wives is still widespread.
Berad, in his early 20s, was married for three years when his wife was found in a well 200 metres from his house on his farm in June 1984. As was common practice then, his young wife was actually his first cousin—daughter of his maternal uncle. The girl's father was not wealthy and soon dowry demands sprang up. Her father would sell his meagre farm produce to satisfy his sister's demands—she was after all his daughter's mother-in-law.
Laxmibai's death was reported as being accidental, till a doctor during post-mortem said strangulation had caused it. The husband was charged with murder but the trial judge acquitted him in 1984.
In 2004, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay HC gave a split verdict. One judge, N V Dabholkar, confirmed the acquittal, but Justice B H Marlapalle—himself a farmer's son—figured something was amiss. He called for forensic opinion and assessed facts. Both exposed Berad’s guilt. The well was only 11 feet wide with 3 feet occupied by a pulley. The victim, despite the alleged fall, showed no injuries, he observed.
The forensic expert said that the woman was strangulated at night and her body was dumped in the well. Justice Marlapalle quashed the acquittal and convicted Berad. A third judge confirmed the conviction.
The SC heard advocate Asha Nair for the state who said that the doctor had in “unequivocal terms” declared it was murder by “strangulation by pressing a rolling pin in her neck”. The SC ruled that the defence lawyer’s submission had no merit and that “the HC was right in concluding that Berad was guilty of murder”.
The SC ruled that the defence lawyer’s submission had no merit and that ‘the HC was right in concluding that Sahebrao Berad was guilty of murder’