NARAYANA PILLAI BALAKRISHNA PILLAI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Narayana Pillai Balakrishna Pillai of Kochu Veedu, (Thenguvila), Muzhanodi Muri, Thodiyoor Pakuthy, Karunagappally Taluk, has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Quilon of two offences of murder and sentenced to death. The condemned prisoner, who will hereinafter be referred to as the accused, has preferred Criminal Appeal No. 110 challenging the conviction and the sentence. Referred Trial No. 9 is the proceeding arising from the submission by the learned Judge of the records of the case under S.374, Criminal Procedure Code, for confirmation of the sentence of death.

(2.) The question for our decision is as to who caused the injuries on Devaki Amma and the child and under what circumstances. At the outset of his arguments learned counsel for the accused raised a preliminary point that the trial was illegal and that it should therefore be quashed. We have given the matter our best attention, but we cannot accept the argument. Our reasons therefore will be set out after we deal with the case on the merits.

(3.) In answer to the prosecution case that the accused it was who killed Devaki Amma and her child the accused stated before the Committing Magistrate's Court that he had not committed any crime and that it was Bhaskara Kurup or rather through him that the occurrence took place. It is difficult to understand what the accused meant by the latter part of the statement. At the Sessions trial during the examination of the prosecution witnesses the entire attempt of the defence was to make out Bhaskara Kurup committed the acts which caused the death of Devaki Amma and her child and that the accused arrived at the scene after Kurup had left or was leaving the scene. But that case was given the go by when the accused made his statement before that Court. In that statement he said that when he returned home at about 4 p.m. on 17.8.1127 (30.3.1952) he found all the doors of the house closed and Devaki Amma and Bhaskara Kurup lying on a cot, that seeing him enter the room where they were Bhaskara Kurup jumped at him with the chopper he had kept beneath the pillow, that then a row ensued between all the three and that afterwards Bhaskara Kurup left the place. He also did not remain there long after Kurup left. This, as pointed out by the learned Sessions Judge was an attempt to raise the plea of "grave and sudden provocation" without at the same time admitting that Devaki Amma and the child died as a result of the injuries they sustained at the accused's hand. We do not seek to proceed as if there is an admission by the accused that he inflicted the injuries of which Devaki and the child died. The prosecution has to prove its case independently. There is however no evidence to bear out the version the accused gave at the trial. That version goes against the statement the accused made before the Committing Magistrate and also against the defence suggested in the Sessions Court during the cross examination of the main prosecution witnesses. Besides, the accused himself did not expressly state that he committed the crime under grave and sudden provocation. Neither the accused nor Bhaskara Kurup is seen to have sustained any injuries in the alleged row. Before us the learned counsel for the accused without abandoning this part of the case attempted to show that Bhaskara Kurup must have committed these crimes and for that reliance was placed on the evidence the eyewitnesses and some other witnesses gave at the Sessions trial contracting their own evidence in the commitment proceeding. We shall presently refer to that evidence.