RAJAGOPALA AIYANGAR Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a most tragic case in which the appellant, one Rajagopala Aiyangar aged 30, has been found guilty of clubbing his wife and four children shortly after midnight in their house in Kivalur. The four children clubbed murderously on their heads with an iron pestle succumbed to their injuries, but his wife Mathura-valli survived. She had eight injuries mainly on the head and face with suspected fracture of the skull. After sometime in hospital she was discharged with the wounds healed, but her mental faculties impaired, and, according to Dr. Mrs. Mathew, unable to say anything about her family or what happened to her children. She was not examined as a witness in this case. The learned Sessions Judge of East Tanjore has found the appellant guilty of the quadruple murder of his four children and sentenced him to death. He also found him guilty under Section 307, I.P.C., of attempting to murder his wife and sentenced him to transportation for life.

(2.) The facts of this distressing case are perfectly clear. Two neighbours, P. Ws. 1 and 2, were awakened after midnight by noises and grons from this house and came out to find appellant standing at the threshold or his house with an iron pestle, M. O. 1. in his hand. They both say he told them "I have closed all, but I cannot bring myself to kill the small child" and pointed to his youngest daughter aged 2 standing near him. P.Ws. 1 and 2 immediately went to the police station. The Sub-Inspector, P.w. 12, found one of the children dead and sent Mathuravalli and the three other children who were alive to the Negapattinam hospital, where the children succcumbed to their injuries. Their heads were all crushed by blows from this pestle.

(3.) Appellant made no attempt to deny his guilt. In the lower Court he merely said that all the evidence against him was true. At the Sessions trial he also said he had nothing to say and made no attempt to explain his horrifying con duct.