MANOHARAN Vs. STATE BY INSPECTOR OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The present appeals raise the spectre of a ghastly rape and murder. The brief facts necessary for appreciation in these appeals are as follows.

(3.) One Mohanakrishnan (at 7.50 a.m. on 29.10.2010) who had borrowed a vehicle from PW.7 its owner, picked up two children, a girl aged 10 years old and her brother aged 7 years old from outside a Hindu Temple as the children were preparing to go to school. This Mohanakrishnan was seen by PW.3, the priest of the particular Vinayakar Temple and by PW.9, the grandmother of the two children, taking the children away in the aforesaid vehicle. Mohanakrishnan then drove the children to a petrol pump at around 8.15 a.m. on the same day, and at 9.30 a.m. picked up the Appellant from his house in Angalakuruchi. The children were then taken to a remote area called the Gopalsamy Temple Hills at roughly 10.45 a.m. at which point rape was allegedly committed on the girl whose hands were tied by both Mohanakrishnan and the Appellant. Thereafter, considering that the girl had been brutally raped (her anus having ruptured), the two accused bought what is called cow dung powder which is nothing but a poisonous substance which is added to cow dung to keep insects away. This substance together with milk that was also purchased by the Appellant herein was allegedly administered by both Mohanakrishnan as well as the Appellant to the two children in an attempt to do away with both of them. Both children ingested only a small portion of the cow dung powder mixed with the milk and did not die. Mohanakrishnan and the Appellant thereafter to do away with both the children threw them in Parambikulam-Axhiyar Project canal ("PAP Canal") and it was alleged by the prosecution that the girl was tied up and pushed into the canal by the Appellant herein whereas the boy was pushed into the canal by Mohanakrishnan. At 5.00 p.m., PW.24 saw the school bags of the two children floating in the canal, which were then given to PW.22. Later on the same evening, PW.22 informed PW.10 the principal of the school who then informed the police between 6.15 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. the same evening. At 9.00 p.m. on the same day, Mohanakrishnan went to the house of PW.7 one Anbu @ Gandhiraj, who informed the police, as a result of which Mohanakrishnan was arrested at 9.45 p.m. on the same night at PW.7's house. At 9.30 a.m. on the next day, the girl's body was recovered from the canal. On 31.10.2010, the present Appellant was arrested at 7.15 a.m. and on the same day, the boy's body was also recovered from the canal. To complete the narrative, Mohanakrishnan was shot dead by the police on 9.11.2010 in an encounter. That left only the Appellant to be tried as an accused. A confession was recorded before the Magistrate in a statement made under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by the Appellant on 20.11.2010 which was partially retracted only by a letter dated 25.7.2012, which the Appellant asked the trial court to treat as a statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.