KESAVAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is by the 1st and 4th of the five persons accused at the trial. All five were charged with murder. Accused 2, 3 and 5 have been acquitted altogether while accused 1 and 4 though acquitted of the charge of murder on the score that exception 2 to S.300 I. P. C. applied, have been convicted under the second part of S.304 I. P. C. and have each been sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for seven years. (How an act which comes only within the second part and not within the first part of S.304 I. P. C. can ever come within the body of S.300 so as to require the aid of an exception to take it out of murder, is difficult to follow). Against the acquittals there is no appeal.

(2.) Accused 1 and 2 are brothers, and so are accused 3 and 4 who are distant cousins of accused 1 and 2. The 5th accused runs a betel shop near the 4th accused's rice mill, but otherwise there seems to be no connection between him and the remaining accused.

(3.) The prosecution case is briefly as follows : There was ill will between the accused on the one side and the deceased on the other because about ten months before the occurrence, which took place at about 5 P. M. on 19-1-1959, the deceased had taken back by force a cow he had hired to the 1st accused. Then, on 14-1-1959, five days before the occurrence, the deceased and PW 7 had beaten the 2nd accused's son, and the 2nd accused's son had lodged a complaint (Ext. P2) with the police. In this connection the Sub-Inspector of Police, PW 21, had gone on the locality on the morning of the occurrence and questioned the deceased.