AHAMAD Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the judgment of the Principle Sessions Judge, Mysore Division, in Hassan Sessions Case No. 2 of 1949-50 convicting the appellant accused of an offence under Section 302, Penal Code, and sentencing him to death. A reference is also made under Section 374, Criminal P.C.

(2.) The prosecution case is that the accused, who is a coolie in what is known as Halekere Coffee Estate in Sakalespur Taluk murdered one Kunni alias Kunjapo. The motive for the offence is said to be that the accused's father-in-law refused to give the accused's wife's sister in marriage to him and that it had been settled that she had to marry Kunjapo.

(3.) The material witnesses, however, are his wife, father-in-law and other relatives who depose to the accused being angry on the refusal of his father-in-law and other relatives who depose to the accused being angry on the refusal of his father-in-law to give his wife's sister in marriage to him and to his having gone alone with Kunjapo holding a chopper, but returning alone in blood-stained clothes and with injuries on his left hand. The Coffee Planter P.W. 12 corroborates them on these points. He and P.Ws. 10, 16 to 18 state that the accused made a confession of his having killed Kunjapo. P.Ws. 12 to 15 state that the accused showed the dead body. P.W.8 and others say that the accused produced a chopper. P.W.4 is the Doctor who held post mortem examination over the dead body.