STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. YAMANAPPA IRAPPA BOMMANAHALLI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE State of Karnataka has preferred this appeal, which is directed against an order of acquittal recorded by the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Bijapur, in S. C. No. 57/1994. The four accused, who are respondents before us, were tried for the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of I. P. C. the allegation being that, at about 12. 30 in the night. of 22-9-1993, they are alleged to have assaulted deceased Upashappa Kallappa Mamadapur with an axe and wooden clubs, and that they inflicted severe injuries on him as a result of which he died after some time. The trial court, after a careful analysis of the evidence, held that the material on record did not establish the charges and consequently acquitted the accused and it is against this decision that the present appeal has been filed.

(2.) THE learned Government Pleader, who appears in support of the appeal, was critical of the approach adopted by the trial court, because he pointed out that this is a case in which the accused and the prosecution witnesses are known to each other. These persons are not strangers and it was his submission that P. W. 7-Shivappa was admittedly sleeping in the adjoining room to where the assault took place and that he is an eye-witness, who has identified the four accused. We have been taken through the evidence of this witness and the learned counsel points out that nothing appreciable has emerged in the cross-examination to discredit his evidence. According to him, the moment Upashappa was assaulted, he shouted out and the witness, who is also his nephew and who was sleeping there, immediately woke up and it is his version that he distinctively pointed a bright torch at the spot. He states that A-1 and A-2 were armed with axes and that they were assaulting Upashappa, and A-3 and A-4 were carrying wooden clubs with which they also assaulted him. According to the witness, as soon as the accused saw him approaching them, they threw down some of the weapons and fled from that place. The submission is that, this evidence is totally and fully corroborated by the medical evidence because there are multiple injuries on upashappas body and the doctor has opined that these could have been caused through axe blows and in the course of an assault through wooden clubs. The submission, therefore, is that there is no conceivable ground on which this evidence can be rejected nor is there any ground on which that with this evidence, the accused could have been acquitted.

(3.) IN addition to this, our attention has been drawn to the medical evidence which we have referred to and to the evidence of p. Ws. 11 and 12, because the learned Counsel submits that these two witnesses referred to the fact that they had seen the accused armed with deadly weapons running away from the scene of offence and it is his submission that these circumstances lend all the corroboration that the Court could ask for in a case of the present type. The rest of the evidence in this case is more or less supportive and we do not need to refer to it.