RAVIPATI SITARAMAYYA Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a case, which has given us anxious consideration. Appellant, a man aged 43, has been found guilty under Section 302 I. P. C. of the murder of his 17 year old wife, Balakotamma, by strangling her to death during the night of 29-5-1950 in his house in Vetapalam village in which there were admittedly no other inmates. The next morning appellant asked a washerman (P. W. 7) to take a message to his wife's uncles, P. Ws. 1 and 5 and her maternal uncle and foster father P .W. 6 who all lived at Vadlamudi, a village -'three miles away to the effect that she was found lying speechless and unconscious in his house. On receipt of this message at 7 A. M. P. Ws. 1, 5 and 6 hastened to Vetapalem and found Balakotamma lying dead on a cot. According to P. W .1, appellant when questioned first made no reply and then denied knowledge of anything. There were no visible injuries on the body. Suspecting that appellant and his concubine one Subbamma had poisoned her, they made a complaint to this effect Ex. P, 1 at the Vadlamudi Police station at midday. The only evidence that, the village munsif of Vetapalam (P. W. 9) gives is that he was a Panchayatdar at the inquest held by the Circle Inspector (P. W. 11) who reached Vetapalam at 4 p.m. Near the corpse was lying a rice pounder M. O. 3. On the body was a blouse M. O. 1 put on. as is described, inside out and a sari M. O. 2. P. W. 1 says when he saw it was slightly wet. Postmortem held by Miss Annapoornama, Assistant Surgeon of Tenali the following morning at 8 a.m. showed that death was due to asphyxia as a result of strangulation. An echymosed patch was found on the neck extending upwards to the lower jaw and downwards to the upper part of both collar bones. The trachea and larynx were congested, oesophagus ecchymosed and the hyoid bone broken. There can be no doubt about the cause of death, which was strangulation by great pressure on the throat.

(2.) The Circle Inspector returned the post mortem certificate to Vetapalam and arrested the accused on the 2nd June. He produced him before the Sub- Magistrate of Tenali (P. W. 4) on the evening of the 3rd of June with a requisition Ex. P. 3 to record his confession. As it was after lock up time, the Magistrate asked him to be produced the following morning and he was then kept in the sub-jail after being given the necessary warnings. He was produced again before the Magistrate on 5-6-1951 and after giving clear warnings to the appellant in full conformity not only with Section 164 Cr. P. C. but also with Rule 85 of the Criminal Rules of Practice, the Magistrate recorded a long detailed confession from the appellant in which he confessed that he squeezed his wife's throat, while she was asleep with his own hands. Appellant's statement was to the effect that he returned home at mid-night and found his wife asleep, that in view of domestic troubles she was giving him he strangled her, that he slept in the house till the morning, that he fetched his mother, that neighbours gathered and that he sent word to his brothers-in-law. He said that one of them, when he came to the house, kicked him on the head, which struck against the wall and poked him with a stick near the abdomen. The domestic troubles he detailed there related to complaints his wife made to her brothers who continually interfered in his domestic life and when he protested his wife scolded him and said she would get him killed by her brothers. The gist of his confession is that he killed her thinking that after doing so, he would also die at the hands of the Government, rather than be killed by her brothers. This confession was retracted in the committing court where the appellant pleaded that he was coerced by the Circle Inspector and the Deputy Superintendent of Police into making the confession, that the wording was not his and that he repeated what he was asked to say like a parrot. He adopted the same attitude at his trial. There is no other evidence against the appellant.

(3.) A curious feature about the confession is that it mentions nothing about the concubine Subbamma, who the appellant continued to keep after he married Balakotamma as his second wife three years ago, after his first wife died. (After discussing the evidence, the Judgment proceeded). The main contention of Mr. Rajagopalachari for the appellant is that no conviction is possible in the absence of any evidence to corroborate the confession which, he has asked us to reject as not being a true and voluntary one in view of its mentioning several facts, opposed to the evidence in the case. I am myself unable to see any reason for rejecting the finding of the learned Sessions Judge that this confession by the appellant despite its suppression of the existence of Subbamma, and the possibility of other inaccuracies of fact set out there, was voluntarily made by the appellant on being confronted with the results of the post mortem examination. Mr. Rajagopalachari has suggested in his able argument the possibility of the concubine Subbamma, having entered the house in the absence of the appellant, and having strangled Balakotamma without the assistance or even the knowledge of the appellant who when he returned home and found her dead, in consternation at his discovery, with a moral conviction as to the guilty person, adopted the course he did of sending a message to his mother and his wife's relations only the next morning, and then making this confession, when the post-mortem showed the cause of death, in the manner lie did, to shield the real culprit, who was his concubine Subbamma. The material does indeed show that Subbamma did have a strong grievance against Balakottamma whose resentment and protests at her continued association with the appellant had provoked mediation and led to solemn undertakings by her to have nothing to do with the appellant. I do not find any suggestion in the learned sessions judge's judgment of any such theory, which has been made for the first time in this court on the basis of the retracted confession and the statements made by the appellant in the committing court and at his trial. A defect, in my view, in the material placed before the court arises from the unfortunate state of our law, under which the first statement made by the appellant to the police regarding the discovery of his wife's corpse, the time at which he found it and what he did immediately afterwards is completely shut out in evidence under Section 162 Cr. P. C. The shutting out of what an accused person tells a police officer particularly in a case of this kind, when first questioned, opens the way for all kinds of statements being made in the committing magistrate's court and also at the trial in conformity with advised lines of defence, which are, of course, impossible to verily and places the prosecution at a great disadvantage. The view that I have no hesitation in taking is that in cases of this kind, the police would do well to take an accused person before a Magistrate, whether he makes a confession or not, and have a statement recorded under Section 164 Cr. P.C. so that the accused person can be fixed to one explanation when placed in a position which becomes incriminating unless he can offer a satisfactory explanation for his behaviour. This is a case in which a man and his wife are the sole occupants of a house, in which the wife is found suddenly I dead and post mortem has proved conclusively that it is the result of violent strangulation. A prima facie strong suspicion points to the husband. It is in this background that the confession made before the magistrate, without any appreciable delay in the circumstances has to be appreciated. Although this line of defence has not been raised in the trial court, I have carefully considered the possibility of the concubine Subbamma being the sole culprit. There are cases in which an innocent person may take upon himself full responsibility for a crime, even murder, to save someone whom he dearly loves from punishment. My own view is that this is not such a case and that the appellant's confession that he and no one else strangled his wife can be safely acted upon.