N RAJENDRA PRASAD BHAT Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) :- The appellant-accused has preferred this appeal against the judgement dated 22-10-1993 passed by the Sessions Judge; Dakshina Kannada, Mangalore, in S.C. No. 70/1990 convicting the appellant-accused for the offenses punishable under Sections 302 and 392, I.P.C. and sentencing him to rigorous imprisonment for life for the offence under Section 302, I.P.C. and rigorous imprisonment for five years for the offence under Section 392, I.P.C.

(2.) We have heard Sri R. B. Deshpande, learned Counsel for the appellant-accused, and Sri. A. B. Patil, learned Additional State Public Prosecutor for the State, fully and perused the records of the case.

(3.) The case of the prosecution in brief is as follows :Deceased Smt. Prabhavathi was the mother of P.W. 1 - Bhaskara Bhat and PW. 11 - Lalitha Bhat and she was the wife of complainant Gopala Bhat. The accused is the husband of P.W. 11 - Lalitha Bhat and son-in-law of deceased Prabhavathi. Gopala Bhat was a retired post-master and after retiring from his service, he was residing in a rented house at Durgaprasad Compound at Udupi with deceased Prabhavathi, P.W. 11 - Latha Bhat and the accused. Another daughter of the deceased by name Geetha was residing at Anokola. P.W. 1 - Bhaskara Bhat was the only son of deceased Prabhavathi and Gopala Bhat. P.W. 4 - Dr. Gopinath Bhat is the brother-in-law of the accused and he was having his clinic at Bajpe. The accused had married P.W. 11, daughter of the deceased about 10 or 12 years prior to the incident. The accused is an engineering graduate having studied B.E. in electrical and he was working as an engineer at Madras. P.W. 11 resided in her father-in-law's house for some time. But, 2 or 3 years after the marriage,. the accused came to Udupi and he was employed as Principal in Sunkadaktte Polytechnic. He worked there for about 3 months as Principal. The accused was addicted to the habit of gambling. On account of this bad habit, he lost his job of Principal as he misappropriated the money of the school for his gambling purpose. Thereafter, he got a job at Manipal and he lost that job also on account of his gambling habit. After losing the job at Manipal, he got jobs at two other places and he lost those two jobs also on account of his habit of gambling.At the time when the deceased was done to death, the accused was unemployed. Deceased Prabhavathi was giving money for the accused for his personal expense s as he had no income of his own due to his unemployment, P.W. 1 - Bhaskara Bhat was coming to the house of his parents once in a month to see his parents from his place of employment, Mathikana Estate. On the day of the incident, P.W. 11 - Latha Bhat had gone to stay with P.W. 4 - Dr. Gopinath Bhat at Bajpe, who is the brother-in-law of the accused. On the date of the incident, i.e. 16-4-1990, at about 8.30 p.m., Gopala Bhat made a phone call to P.W. 1 and informed him that his mother had died and asked him to come immediately. P. W. 1 came in a car and reached Udupi in the night and he saw the dead body of his Mother with injuries lying beneath a cot in the bed-room and her karimanisara and havalada sara so also the gold bangles which the deceased was always wearing were missing from the dead body. P.W. 1's father Gopala Bhat expressed suspicion about the accused being the author of thisoffence. Then Gopala Bhat went and filed the complaint. The police registered a case and after investigation filed a charge-sheet against the accused.