STATE OF KERALA Vs. MADHAVAN PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused in this case was charged with the murder of his wife, with causing hurt to his child aged a year and a half, and with attempting to commit suicide. The learned Sessions Judge found that the accused did commit the acts alleged but, nevertheless, acquitted him on ground that 'he was, at the time of the commission of the acts, by reason of unsoundness of mind incapable of knowing the nature of the acts or that he was doing what was wrong or contrary to law; In other words on the ground of the general exception embodied in Section 84, I.P.C. Against this acquittal the State has appealed.

(2.) The accused, the deceased and their four children (the youngest of them being the victim of the hurt) were living together. The accused's father also was an inmate of the house, but at the time of the occurrence, which took place on the morning of the 4th December, 1955, he was away and the accused and the deceased and their Jour children were the only persons in the house. At about ten that morning, P.Ws. 6 and 7 and one Bhaskara Pillai who were standing by the side of a tank in front of the house, hardly 100 feet away, heard cries proceeding from the house and ran to the spot. On reaching there they found the deceased standing in the courtyard of the house with an injury in her abdomen through which her intestines had come out. She had her child in her arms and the child also had a bleeding injury in its abdomen She told them that her husband had stabbed, her and asked them to go and fetch her people namely, her mother, uncle and brother who were living about 1 1/2 miles away. P.W. 6, at once left to fetch these persons, while P.W. 7 and Bhaskara Pillai helped the deceased to the verandah of her house and kept her there reclining against the wall. Some time later P.Ws. 1, 3, 4, 8 and 14 (P.W. 3 being a cousin of the deceased, P.W. 8 her uncle, P.W. 14 her mother, and P.Ws. 1 and 4 neighbours) came there on getting the news and to them the deceased stated that the accused had stabbed her and her child when she was sitting in the verandah of the kitchen of the house with the child in her arms after serving him with food. P.Ws. 1, 3, 4, 8, and 14 went inside the house and found the accused lying in one of the rooms with injuries on his neck and abdomen and with a bloodstained open pen-knife, M.o. 3, by his side. P.W. 3 fetched a taxi and took the 3 injured persons in it first to the Government dispensary at Kottarakara and from there to the District Hospital at Quilon where they reached at about 6 P.M. The Hospital authorities informed the Sub-Inspector of Police, P.W. 10, and the Magistrate, P.W. 18. The Magistrate reached the hospital aS 6-30 P.M. and straightaway recorded the deceased's dying declaration Ex. P. 16, in which she repeated that her husband had stabbed her in his house at about 10 that morning for no reason whatsoever. The Magistrate then proceeded to record the dying declaration, Ext. P. 17, from the accused and in it the accused said that he had a knife with him when he sat down for his meal, that it was still with him when he got up after having had his meal, and that he did not know what happened thereafter. He added that for three or four months Past he was not well. He was silent and moody and was confining himself to the house and there were occasions when he did not know what was happening.

(3.) Meanwhile, P.W. 10, the Sub-Inspector of Police, also reached the hospital and, the deceased being unable to speak, he recorded the statement, Ext. P. 1, from P.W. 1 who was by her side and it was on this statement that the case was registered. Apart from this no importance attaches to Ext. P. 1.