PAPPAN NARAYANAN Vs. KERALA STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant accused, a man of 28, has been convicted of the murder of his wife, aged 25, and the attempted murder of his wifes first cousin, who has been examined as Pw. 1 in the case. He has been sentenced to imprisonment for life for the former offence and to rigorous imprisonment for seven years for the latter, the sentences to run concurrently.

(2.) About three months before the occurrence, which took place on the night of the 28th November 1957, the deceased quarrelled with the accused and went to live in the house of Pw. 1, about six miles away. At the instance of the accused and his father, a panchayat was held in respect of this matter on 28-11-1957 by Pw. 5, the President of the local Panchayat. No agreement was however reached since the deceased was unwilling to go back to her husband and her uncle, Pw. 6, who had given her in marriage (her parents being dead) declined to pay the accused his marriage expenses as suggested by Pw. 5. The evidence of Pw. 1 shows that later in the day, at about dusk, the accused went to Pw. 1s house and demanded that the deceased should go with him. The deceased refused to go with him, and he left the place alone.

(3.) That night the deceased and Pw. 1 slept in the house of their fathers first cousin, Pw. 7, hardly a 50 feet north - west of Pw. 1s house. They did so at Pw. 7s request because Pw. 7 and his wife were going to spend the night slicing tapioca and spreading it out to dry on a rock called Parachirapara about 100 yards north of their house. The only other inmates of their house were their little daughter, aged eight, and Pw 1s sister, Pw. 2, who was in the tenth month of her pregnancy and had come to Pw. 7s house for her confinement. (Pw. 2, being an orphan, had been brought up by Pw. 7 and his wife, and that is why she went to them for her confinement. Moreover, apart from the deceased who was there only for temporarily and was expected to go back to her husband at any time, there were no women folk in the house of Pw. 2s brother, Pw. 1). It was against the possibility of Pw. 2 requiring assistance in the course of the night that Pw. 1 and the deceased went to sleep there, and there was also a country lamp kept burning in the house on the wall separating the verandah from the room in which the deceased and Pw. 2 and Pw. 7s daughter were sleeping. Pw. 1 was sleeping in the verandah