KANNAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant stands convicted under Ss. 302 and 324 i. P. C. He has been sentenced to imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 25 for the former offence and to imprisonment for six months for the latter.

(2.) FROM about three weeks before the occurrence, which took place at about mid-night on the night of the 19th March 1955 , the accused and the deceased and pws. 1 to 8, a gang of agricultural labourers, had been camping in a shed on Pw. 14's land in Vettiakonam Muri for the harvest. (Pw. 2 was the Moopan or leader. Pws. 3, 7 and 8 are Pw. 2's sisters, and Pw. 6 his nephew. Pw. 1 is the husband of Pw. 3, and the accused the husband of Pw. 8. The deceased and his mother, pw. 4, and aunt, Pw. 5, though not related to the rest were also, as we have seen, members of the gang ). In the course of a few days the deceased, a bachelor, became intimate with the accused's wife, Pw. 8 and was, with the active help and connivance of her sister's husband, Pw. 1, prosecuting an intrigue with her, and on one occasion the accused caught them in the act in a field near the shed with Pw. 1 keeping watch. This naturally broke the peace of the camp and, in order to restore peace, Pw. 2 took and left his sister, Pw. 8, in her house in Pennukkara, about ten miles away. This was on the 17th March. At about mid-night on the night of Saturday the 19th, when all were asleep in the shed, Pws. 2 and 3 woke up on hearing cries, and they found the accused stabbing the deceased in the neck with a pen-knife. (The medical evidence shows that the deceased suffered two incised wounds on the left side of the neck and a third on the right index finger. Of the two injuries on the neck one, cutting through the carotid artery, was necessarily fatal and must have caused more or less instantaneous death ). They tried to catch him but he shook himself free and after stabbing Pw. 1 who was sleeping near-by three times, inflicting injuries on the chest, right arm and right thigh, ran away southwards, knife in hand. Pws. 4 to 7, who had meanwhile woken up, saw him thus running away but they did not see the actual stabbing. A neighbour, Pw. 9, who came to the scene on hearing the cries also saw the accused running away. The deceased died on the spot. Early in the morning, Pw. 1 was taken to the Thiruvalla hospital, six miles away, and there, on intimation sent by the hospital authorities, the Sub inspector, Pw. 16 went at about 10 A. M. and recorded from him the statement, ex. P. 1.

(3.) THE evidence is that Pw. 1 was taken to the hospital by pws. 2 and 3, and Pw. 3's evidence shows that she was present when Pw. 16 recorded Ext. P 1 from Pw. 1. And yet the evidence of Pw. 16 is that he knew nothing about the murder until he stumbled on the body when be went to the scene that afternoon to investigate Pw. 1's complaint on which he had registered a case under S. 324 I. P. C. This, of course, is something which we find it impossible to believe if, indeed, Pw. 3 was an eye witness to the murder and Pw. 1 was a person who suffered injuries in the course of the same transaction and knew about the murder immediately after it had taken place. Pw. 3's evidence, on the other hand, is that she was questioned by Pw. 16 at the hospital along with her husband and that both of them told him all that had happened. Two inferences are possible, both equally damaging to the prosecution. One is that neither Pw. 1 nor Pw. 3 told Pw. 16 anything about the murder, in which case their present evidence becomes unacceptable. THE other is that they did say something and that what they said (which must necessarily have been recorded) has been suppressed. Ext. P. 1 itself furnishes some indication that the latter might have been the case, for although the case is that it was recorded on the 20th March it begins by giving the date as the 21st march. In the end also we find that the signature of Pw. 16 was first dated 21-3-1955 and that the figure '1' in '21' has been converted into a zero to make the date 20-3-1955. However that might be, it becomes difficult to accept the evidence of Pws. 1 to 3 in the character which they have now assumed.