ALAVI Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ACCUSED , two in number, was charge sheeted for offence punishable under S.302 and 189 read with S.34 of the Indian Penal Code for alleging murdering one Aleema, sister of the first accused. Second accused is the father's younger brother of A1 and deceased. PW 1 Amina is the sister of A1. PW 11 Aisha is another sister of A1 and deceased. A1 had three other brothers also. Deceased, PW 1 and accused were living in the tharawad house with the mother. Motive for the crime, alleged by the prosecution, is gifting of some landed property to the deceased by her father. According to the prosecution, father had assigned 55 cents of property to Aleema to the consternation of Alavi and his three brothers. They had made every attempt to thwart the endeavour of the old man to assign property to the daughters, but, could not succeed. Alavi had strongly resented the act of his father giving property to Aleema and he had declared that Aleema would not be permitted to enjoy her property. On 14/02/1999 Aleema brought Firoz (PW 10) and Subramanian (PW 2) her coworkers in a brick kiln, for doing some work in the property assigned to her. In the morning, A1 Alavi and A2 Hamza Kurikkal came and made an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the work done by Firoz and Subramanian. At about 4.00 p.m., Alavi and Hamza Kurikkal came there and had a wordy altercation with Aleema who was supervising the work. As instigated by Hamza Kurikkal, Alavi came near Aleema, hold her neck, whipped up a knife and stabbed her on the neck. Thereafter, Alavi felled Aleema down, pinned her to the ground pressing his right knee on her chest. Alavi brandished the knife towards Firoz and Subramanian and threatened them to cause their death if they refused to leave the place. They scampered and Alavi slit his sister's throat with the knife. Ameena (PW 1) who came out of the house for ablutions for the prayer saw the incident. She went to the police station situated nearby and gave Ext. P1 FI statement. Consequently, Ext. P1 (a) FIR was registered. PW 15 Circle Inspector of Police conducted inquest on the body, seized the material objects including MO 1 knife, searched the house of accused and recovered the blood stained cloths (MOs 2 and 3) of A1, arrested the accused, questioned the witnesses and recorded their statements. PW 16 Circle Inspector of Police completed investigation and filed final report.

(2.) PW 9 doctor conducted autopsy on the body of Aleema on 15/02/1999 and issued Ext. P10 postmortem certificate. He has noted the following injuries in Ext. P10:

(3.) ACCORDING to the learned Sessions Judge, the above factors point out to the guilt of the first accused and first accused (appellant) alone. There was no evidence regarding the role of second accused. Before analysing the evidence adduced in the case, we may refer to the defence adduced by the accused. After the close of prosecution evidence, the accused were questioned under S.313 CrPC. He denied having committed any offence. A1 filed a statement alleging that he was living with his mother and the deceased in the same house, that he was not nurturing ill will against the deceased, that he is totally innocent, that he is unaware as to what happened on the fateful day and that he has no role in it. The shirt, lunki and both towel marked in this case do not belong to him. He has nothing to do with the knife produced by the prosecution. The witnesses Subramanian and Firoz are friends of the deceased and they have perjured in this Court. The charge sheet was filed without proper investigation and without apprehending the real accused.