SIDDAPPA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant herein was convicted by the Sessions Court at Raichur under S.302 I.P.C. and sentenced to suffer imprisonment for life for committing the murder of his wife in the mid-night on 21-8-1986 on the katte in front of their house at Aidabhavi village in Raichur District by assaulting her with an axe. The case depended solely on the circumstantial evidence, the circumstances being the accused and the deceased sleeping on the katte that night, the deceased crying aloud at midnight time on sustaining severe injuries, and the accused being seen running from that place away and then he approaching the Dalapathi of the village and making confession before him and thereafter the Dalapathi taking the accused to the Police Station at Lingasugur and producing him in the police Station and the axe and the clothes stained with blood being seized at the Police Station and the PSI having arrived at the spot on receipt of the report of the Dalapathi. The P.S.I. after seizing the articles from the person of the accused, handed over investigation to the C.P.I. and he having gone to the spot, held inquest over the dead body and found four injuries on it.

(2.) In this jail appeal, Sri N. S. Shivayogimath has been appointed Amicus Curiae and he has ably assisted us. Out of these circumstances, according to him, the Sessions Court went wrong in the relying on the extra-judicial confession said to have been made before the Dalapathi P.W. 1. Dalapathi, who is appointed under the Karnataka Village Defence Parties Act, 1964, is a Police Officer and, therefore, the confession said to have been made before him by the accused is inadmissible u/S.25 of the Evidence Act. The Sessions Court relied on some decisions. The decision relied upon by the defence before it and reported in 1972(1) Criminal Law Journal, page 499 appears to have been wrongly quoted and it does not relate to the Office of a Police Patel. However, Office of the Police Patel having been abolished, Dalapathi cannot become a Police Patel. Before the Sessions Court it was argued on behalf of the

(3.) State that in view of the decision in the case of Akanman Bora v. State of Assam 1988 Cri LJ 573 : (1987 (3) Crimes 168) it was held that the Village Defence Party member is not a Police Officer and, therefore, the confession made before him is admissible in evidence. We have gone through the decision relied upon by the Sessions Court and also referred to by the learned High Court Government Pleader in this case and we find that the methods of constitution of the Village Defence Party in our State and in the State of Assam are altogether different. In paragraph 13 of the Report the learned Judges of the Gauhati High Court referred to the constitution of the Assam Village Defence Organisation and pointed out that a member of the Village Defence Party means a person enrolled as a member of the Assam Village Defence Organisation in accordance with the provisions of the Act. The Administration and control of the Village Defence Organisation in that State vest in the Chief Controller of the Organisation. A member may be removed from the Organisation or from the Village Defence Party as the case may be by the Chief Controller or the District Village Defence Officer. Therefore, it is necessary to note this cardinal distinction in the matter of appointment, control and removal of a member of the Village Defence Organisation under Karnataka Act No. 34 of 1964.