NEELAKANTAN VASU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The referred trial and the Criminal Appeal arose from the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge of Kottayam in Sessions Case No. 41 of 1952 convicting one Neelakantan Vasu of the offence of murder and sentencing him to the extreme penalty of the law.

(2.) We heard the case first on 18th February 1953 and reserved judgment. On perusing the records we found that on a point very material to the case the prosecution evidence was discrepant, and the document bearing on the point, conflicting and irreconcilable. The weapon, to wit, a rather biggish penknife, with which the accused Was alleged to have killed his wife, for which offence he was tried and found guilty by the learned Sessions Judge, was, according to the mahazar embodied in the Inquest Report (Ext. C) soaked in blood at the time of its' recovery. The prosecution case was that the police recovered it from the scene of the offence when holding the Inquest which was begun within 12 hours of the occurrence. The Chemical Examiner's report (Ext. H) however, showed that no blood was found on the penknife. This aspect escaped the attention of the lower court nor was it referred to in the arguments before us. To us it appeared that unless there was some reasonable explanation for this inconsistency in important prosecution records it would, in the circumstances of the case, be unsafe to accept the reference made by the Sessions Judge under S.374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to confirm the conviction and the sentence. We, therefore after due notice to both the prosecution and the defence directed the investigating officer (PW 15) to be recalled and reexamined before us. This order was passed on 23rd February 1953 and the further examination of PW 15 took place on 9th March 1953. Neither he nor the learned Public Prosecutor who supported the reference was able to offer any explanation for the irreconcilable nature of the two documents. The witness however affirmed that the description of the penknife in the inquest report as having been virtually soaked in blood was true. His evidence also indicated that all possible precaution was taken to see that after its recovery the penknife was kept intact for the Chemical Examiner's test. The further evidence recorded in this Court therefore only confirmed our misgivings regarding the veracity of the main prosecution fitnesses. Holding the view that the evidence taken as a whole did not justify our acceptance of the reference we acquitted the accused then and there and directed him to be discharged. In so doing we said that the reasons for the decision will be given later, and this is by way of implementing that order.

(3.) The facts of the case are correctly and clearly set out by the learned Sessions Judge in paragraph (l) of his judgment, and that paragraph may with advantage be reproduced here:-