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The Karnataka High Court on Friday (September 18) dismissed an plea seeking suspension of sentence and bail filed by a man convicted of murdering his wife with a machete for objecting to the sale of a property, considering the overwhelming evidence against him including CCTV footage as inferred by the trial court.

The Division Bench of Justice Mohammad Nawaz and Justice B Pramod was hearing an interim application filed by the convict Mahesha, who had been sentenced to death by a Mysuru Sessions Court for offences under Sections 302 and 498A of IPC respectively.

After hearing the parties and perusing the material on record, the Bench observed: “…We find no grounds to suspend the sentence and release the appellant on bail. IA 2/2026 is dismissed”

However, the court has listed the main appeal on October 5, with an oral direction to verify the antecedents of the accused and a report from the probation officer about his conduct in jail.

The trial court had earlier convicted the appellant, and sentenced him to death by hanging for the offence under Section 302 IPC, along with a fine of Rs. 1 Lakh. He was also sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 10,000 for the offence under Section 498A IPC.

The prosecution case, as noted by the Court, was that the deceased was the wife of the accused. She was forced to take on the entire responsibility of the household, while the accused was addicted to gambling and had availed hand loans from various persons. He was also purportedly pressurising the wife to hand over the compensation she had received following the death of her brother in a road traffic accident. Furthermore, the accused wanted to sell a property to which the deceased had objected.

Against this backdrop, the accused committed the murder of his wife by assaulting her with a machete multiple time after she got down from a transport bus.

The petitioner's counsel, before the High Court, argued that there were no eye-witnesses to the incident and that no one had actually seen the accused throwing the machete. It was contended that the circumstantial evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction.

The High Court, however, took note of the trial court findings to the effect that the post-mortem report revealed that the deceased sustaining 21 injuries all over her body. The trial court, on the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution, concluded that when the wife refused to sign the property documents, the accused had planned to commit her murder, the division bench of the High Court noted in the order further.

The trial court had found that the accused had travelled in the same bus as the deceased, armed with a machete. When she got down from the bus, he followed her, held her hands, and assaulted her neck and other parts of her body 21 times. The trial court had then relied on CCTV footage and other material to convict the accused after the trial.

Case Title: Sri Mahesha v. State of Karnataka

Case No: IA 2 in Criminal Appeal No. 192 of 2026

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