ADIMOOLA PADAYACHI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference by the learned Subordinate Judge of South Arcot Division in Sessions case No. 73 of 1959. The appeal of the condemned prisoner is also before us.

(2.) The facts are:- P.W. 1 Kamalammal is the mother of Ranganayaki (deceased) and Rajalakshmi (P.W. 2). She is the owner of certain lands. The deceased Ranganayaki was married to the accused who though he seems to have some share in joint family properties which are apparently not significant, has taken up his residence with his wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, in the house of his mother-in-law and was looking after the cultivation of his mother in-law's lands. This arrangement seems to have proved advantageous to him, because subsequent to his marriage he has purchased one cawnie of land, in regard to which one moiety stands in his name and the other moiety stands in the name of his wife. But unfortunately his mother-in-law and wife had started suspecting probably with good reasons - that the accused has been abstracting grain etc., from their house and selling them and using the money freely for his own private expenses. On that account there have been frequent quarrels. About ten days prior to the occurrence when the mother-in-law refused to give him some money for cultivation expenses, the accused is said to have assaulted P.W. 1 and P.W. 2. P.W. 2 went to Chidambaram and was treated by Dr. Rangaswami.

(3.) P.W. 1 had already borrowed Rs. 2,000 from the accused's elder brother P.W. 4 Govindaswami for the marriage expenses of her two daughters and she borrowed a further sum of Rs. 1,000 from him to be paid over to P.W. 2 and she decided to execute a usufructuary mortgage in favour of P.W. 4 for Rs. 3,000, in order that the accused might not make inroads into her properties. The accused seems to have been greatly nettled by this behaviour of P.W. 1 and started sulking and removed himself to his brother's house and as a parting shot even seems to have sold the hay of P.W. 1 along with his own and there was a further quarrel on that account. These are the circumstances preceding the occurrence on 9-9-1959.