New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on July 13 upheld the conviction of a man for killing his wife within three days of their marriage in 1996. It cancelled his bail and asked him to surrender to the police.

A division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice I.K.Kochhar upheld the trial court’s 2001 verdict convicting Vijay Pal for killing his newly wedded wife after three days of their wedding.

“It is apparent that where a housewife is killed in the matrimonial house, where the place happens to be the room where the husband and wife used to sleep, and the time is either the night or the wee hours of the morning, the needle of suspicion on the husband has been held to be no longer a needle of suspicion,” the bench said.

“It is the husband and the wife who sleep together in a room and not the other family members. Anything happening in the night or the wee hours of the morning has to be accounted for by the husband and his silence is akin to owning up the guilt,” it added.

According to the prosecution, Vijay Pal strangulated Archana Devi on the night of May 4/5, 1996. They had got married on May 1. Archana’s parents alleged that she was killed for dowry.