STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. VITHAL LAXMAN CHALAWADI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SIX persons were tried for the offences punishable under Sections 143. 324 read with Sections 149 and 302 read with Section 149 of I. P. C. and the learned sessions Judge, Bijapur, acquitted four of them and convicted two accused persons for the offence punishable under Section 324 of i. P. C. The State aggrieved by the said order of acquittal of four accused and conviction of two persons for lesser offence under Section 324 of I. P C. has preferred these two appeals, and hence these two appeals are disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) THE case of the prosecution in brief is as under : complainant Guralingappa. (PW-1) was residing in Ambedkar Galli of Bagalkot along with his mother (PW-6 ). deceased elder brother Ramesh, sister Kummakka and sister-in-law Suvarna (PW-9) and about four years prior to the: complaint it was decided to take one Padavva the sister of accused Nos. 1 to 4, in marriage to deceased Ramesh. After the engagement was over Rs. 30,000/- was given to the accused family as they wanted to purchase a Marador Van. The said loan amount was not repaid by the accused and therefore, the vehicle was brought and stationed in front of the house of the complainant. Apart from this incident, the real reason for the present incident to lake place was the refusal on the part of the deceased Ramesh to marry padavva. sister of accused Nos. 1 to 4 and ramesh refused to marry her on the ground that she was hard of hearing. However, the younger sister of accused Nos. 1 to 4 namely, suvarna (PW-9) decided to marry Ramesh after having a love affair with him. Consequent to this, Ramesh took Suvarna to Bijapur and a registered marriage took place between them. This act on the part of the deceased in marrying Suvarna, the younger sister of Accused Nos. 1 to 4 enraged the accused persons as they felt that Ramesh had spoiled the life of Padavva by refusing to marry her. This led to the incident of murder of Ramesh and according to the complaint on 25-12-1995 at about 4. 00 p. m. accused Nos. 1 to 4, toeing the elder brothers of Suvarna went to the house of the Mahadevappa Basappa Dodamani-accused No. 5 and Yellappa-accused No. 6 and had a meeting and afterwards at 6,30 p. m. the four accused Nos. 1 to 4 came to the house of the complainant and asked about the whereabouts of the Ramesh and when Ramesh called the accused persons to come inside the house, they questioned him for having married Suvarna without their consent and thereafterwards, the accused assaulted ramesh with knife all over the body, [t is the complaint allegation that Accused Nos. 1 to 4 assaulted Ramesh with knife on his body and this was followed by Accused No. 2 also assaulting Ramesh with knife on his stomach and accused No. 3 joined in achieving the common object of the assembly crime by instigating the other accused to finish off ramesh. The complainant and his mother (PW-6) went to the rescue of Rameah and in the course of incident they were also assaulted and Accused No. 1 assaulted PW-1, complainant with a knife on the stomach and PW-6 received a chappal blow at the hands of accused No. 3 on her mouth. Following the injury sustained, Ramesh was ttaken in autorickshaw to the hospital but on the way he breathed his last.

(3.) P. W. 11-Shankar, P. S. I. of Bagalkot police Station received information from the hospital that PW 1 who had sustained injuries in the incident was being admitted and immediately PSI went to the hospital and register a case as per Ex. P. 1 in Crime No. 379/ 95 and sent FIR to the Court. Thereafterwards, pw-12, Head Constable was asked to keep watch over the dead body and on the following morning PW-11, the investigating officer conducted the Inquest panchanama, Ex. P. 13 and also spot panchanama as per Ex. P. 14. The clothes of the deceased were seized as per mahazar-Ex. P. 15 and the dead body was sent for post mortem examination and it was conducted by PW 16-Dr. Goudappa shankareppa Baraji. During the post mortem examination, Doctor noticed as many as 17 injuries on the dead body and coupled with four more internal injuries, opined that injury nos. 16 and 17 led to profuse bleeding and the cause of death due to above said injuries. Thereafterwards, the CPI took over the investigation. On his part PW 14 Wilson Sudhakar, the CPI after the arrest of the accused recorded the voluntary statements and based on the statement of A-2 as per Ex. P. 17 recovered two knives under Ex. P. 19 and Ex. P. 18, is the seizure panchanama of chappal. He collected the injury certificates of injured witness as per Ex. P. 21 and Ex. P. 22 and on completion of the investigation which included recording of statements of several witnesses and collecting the FSL report as per ex. P. 23, chemical examination report. Ex. P. 24, the charge sheet was submitted.