‘Body chopped, kept in freezer’: Why Uttarakhand High Court upheld murder conviction of husband
Uttarakhand High Court murder case: Justices Ravindra Maithani and Alok Mahra, dismissing the man's appeal, found he had a “strong motive” to eliminate his wife.
4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Dec 18, 2025 06:08 PM IST
Uttarakhand High Court murder case: The Uttarakhand High Court upholds the conviction of a man accused of killing his wife by chopping her body parts and storing them in a freezer. (This image is generated using AI)
Uttarakhand High Court murder case: The Uttarakhand High Court has upheld a man’s conviction, accused of killing his wife, holding that all the circumstances of the case had proved that the husband alone had killed the victim, butchered her into pieces, as he had a strong motive to eliminate her.
Justices Ravindra Maithani and Alok Mahra, pointing out that the state has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, said that the accused husband had a “strong motive” to eliminate his wife.
“All these circumstances…categorically prove that it is the appellant and appellant alone, who had killed the deceased, cut her body parts into pieces and threw them in the forest,” the order read.
The man filed an appeal challenging the trial court’s order of 2017, in which he was convicted and awarded life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 10 lakh for killing his wife.
Domestic violence, extramarital affair
It was placed on record that the husband was in a very bad relationship with his wife and would beat her up and traumatise her.
The man left the victim for a year and got married to another woman. Subsequently, he returned to the victim but continued beating her, which, the court found, made the victim apprehensive of her future.
She started visiting a tarot card reader who told her to seek judicial separation, but she refused as she wanted to continue the relationship with her husband for the sake of her children, the bench noted.
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Defense
The high court noted that the victim disappeared in 2010 and the accused gave multiple false reasons for her disappearance.
The accused also mentioned lodging a missing report, which was not proved or was not even shown, the court pointed out.
It was found that the accused tried to show that the victim was “alive and communicating” and he, himself, even sent emails from her email ID, whereas she was nowhere in existence and was killed by him long back, the court highlighted.
The victim’s dead body was found in the accused’s freezer, the court underlined, and was confirmed by DNA profiling.
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A few of the victim’s body parts were recovered from the forests after the man’s disclosure statement was recorded.
Arguments
Advocate Neelima Mishra Joshi, appearing for the accused, argued that her client had no motive to commit the crime and emphasised that if he wanted to kill his wife, he would have killed her and disposed of the body and could not have kept the body inside the house for long.
Joshi also contended that there was no evidence of an unusual relationship between his client and the victim, and therefore, no presumption can be drawn that he killed the wife.
On the contrary, the state counsel, additional government advocate Siddhartha Bisht, argued that the accused had a strong motive to eliminate his wife because he was having an extramarital relationship with another woman and had no good relations with the victim.
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He also submitted that the victim’s dead body was found inside the accused’s house, which was under his total control.
Richa Sahay is a Legal Correspondent for The Indian Express, where she focuses on simplifying the complexities of the Indian judicial system. A law postgraduate, she leverages her advanced legal education to bridge the gap between technical court rulings and public understanding, ensuring that readers stay informed about the rapidly evolving legal landscape.
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