Allahabad HC Upholds Life Term for Father Who Strangled Daughter

The Allahabad High Court has upheld the life sentence awarded to a Unnao man convicted of murdering his 17-year-old daughter, concluding that the prosecution had successfully established a complete chain of circumstances pointing only to his guilt, and that his failure to explain how the girl died inside their home triggered the burden under Section 106 of the Evidence Act.

The bench of Justices Rajnish Kumar and Rajeev Singh dismissed the appeal filed by Raju Batham, who was convicted by the trial court in 2016 for killing his daughter Shivani by strangling her with a cloth string.

A written complaint was lodged by the convict’s wife, Santosh Kumari Kashyap, on 8 July 2015. She stated that their daughter, who was studying in Class 12, had been speaking frequently with a young man from their locality, leading to repeated objections from the father. According to the complaint, the situation escalated on the intervening night of July 7–8, when Shivani allegedly insisted she wanted to go away with the boy. In the complaint, the mother said her husband strangled Shivani inside a room of their house around 1–2 AM, and fled when she intervened. She took the girl to the District Hospital, where she was declared dead.

Based on this complaint, an FIR under Section 302 IPC was registered at Police Station Ganga Ghat at 6:05 AM. The inquest was conducted the same morning at the hospital mortuary. The post-mortem noted a horizontal, continuous ligature mark on the neck and concluded the death was caused by asphyxia due to ante-mortem strangulation. The appellant was arrested at 10:40 AM that day. Police later recovered the cloth string allegedly used in the killing from a garbage heap near the house on his pointing.

During trial, several prosecution witnesses, including the complainant, son and daughter-in-law, turned hostile and denied their earlier statements. The complainant even denied lodging the FIR. However, the scriber of the written complaint, Rohit Singh, testified that the complaint was written on the complainant’s dictation and signed by her.

The High Court noted that the trial court had compared her signatures and found them identical. The FIR-scribing constable also confirmed that only the complainant was present at the time of lodging the report, contradicting her later claim that police themselves discovered the death.

The High Court observed that despite the hostile stance of family members, the documentary evidence remained consistent that the incident occurred inside the house; the girl’s body was taken to the hospital by the mother; and the father was absent during the inquest and post-mortem.

The appellant’s own statement under Section 313 CrPC, in which he said police woke him up and told him his daughter had died, was found inconsistent with the established chain of events. Court noted that if he was indeed present, he should have explained how the death occurred and how the complainant reached the police station to lodge the FIR.

The bench also upheld the recovery of the cloth string under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, noting the appellant’s signatures on the recovery memo and the corroboration provided by the investigating officer.

Referring to Supreme Court judgments on circumstantial evidence, particularly Sharad Birdhichand Sarda and State of Madhya Pradesh v. Balveer Singh, court held that the prosecution had proved every circumstance conclusively.

Since the death occurred inside the home where the appellant was present, and the prosecution had established the foundational facts, the burden shifted to him to explain the circumstances of the death, which he failed to do.

Holding the appeal as “misconceived and baseless,” the High Court affirmed the conviction and life sentence imposed by the trial court, and directed transmission of the record for compliance.

Case Title: Raju Batham vs State of UP

Judgment Date: November 24, 2025

Bench: Justices Rajnish Kumar and Rajeev Singh