Bombay High Court upholds conviction of man who killed his sons by throwing them into well

The Bombay High Court at Aurangabad recently upheld the conviction of a man accused of murdering his two minor sons by throwing them into a well following a quarrel with his wife.[Santosh Kacharu Walunje v State of Maharashtra].A Division Bench of Justices RG Avachat and Neeraj Dhote dismissed the appeal filed by the accused, one Santosh Walunje, against the life sentence awarded by the trial court. "Since the children were too small, it is for him to explain what he did with them or when he parted their company. The appellant offered no explanation in that regard. The only conclusion, therefore, that could be drawn is that the appellant and none else dropped his children in the well with an intention to kill them or knowing fully well the consequence thereof would be death of his children. We, therefore, find the trial Court to have rightly convicted the appellant," the Court observed..The incident occurred on December 28, 2018, after Walunje, following a domestic altercation, left home with his two minor children. Their bodies were found floating the next day in a well belonging to a local farmer in Savarkhed village in Nanded. A report was lodged by the well owner and a case of unnatural death was registered. The investigation revealed that Walunje had roamed around with his children, visited relatives, stayed overnight at one relative’s house, and was later seen with the children by multiple witnesses. The children were eventually found dead in the well and post mortem reports confirmed death due to drowning. Subsequently, the trial court convicted him and sentenced him to life which led to the present appeal before the High Court. .Walunje’s counsel argued that the case was based solely on circumstantial evidence. He contended that the well had no protective parapet wall and the children might have fallen into it accidentally. He also pointed to the delays in recording witness statements and the lack of a test identification parade, emphasising that many prosecution witnesses were strangers to the accused. It was further argued that the wife had reasons to falsely implicate him due to ongoing marital discord.The High Court rejected these contentions and found the prosecution’s case to be credible and the chain of circumstances complete. .“It is reiterated that his wife has no reason to testify against her husband at the cost of her marital future. As such, the fact that the appellant after quarreling with his wife left with his two children, gets proved,” the bench noted while reaffirming the trial court's reliance on circumstantial evidence.Hence, it dismissed the appeal..Advocate SG Bobde appeared for the Walunje.Additional Public Prosecutor SN Deshmukh represented the State.Advocate also NS Ghanekar assisted the court. .[Read Judgment]