GANESAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge of North Arcot convicting the appellant. Ganesan. of the murder of his wife and sentencing him to imprisonment for life. It is alleged that he cut her with a bill-hook (M. O. 1) in his house at Thiruvannamalai. about 8. 30 a. m. on 8-1-1972.

(2.) THEY had been married just a few months before. But their marital relationship had not been happy. The appellant had a suspicion, which seems to us to be well founded, that she had been in sexual intimacy with her elder sister's husband. P. W. 6. and. further, she had been refusing conjugal felicity to her husband, the appellant P. W. 1, the eight-year old daughter of an other elder sister of the deceased Kamala. was staving temporarily with the appellant and the de-ceased. On the day in question the appellant asked P. W. 1. to go and Bet onions. The deceased pointed out that she might be involved in some accident and declined to send her. This alone, according to the prosecution, was the motive for the appellant taking the bill-hook nearby and inflicting several cuts on his wife. The murder was witnessed not merely by P. W. 1, but also by P. W. 2. who resides in the house just north. She came out on hearing the screams of Kamala and she saw the appellant inflicting some of the cuts. P. W. 4, a neighbour of the appellant, also saw the appellant coming running with blood on his hands. The appellant had a rope. The appellant ran out crying. "i have committed murder". The rope fell from his hand.

(3.) THE evidence shows that the appellant went straight to the police station at 9-15 a. m. and made a statement. In fact, that is the first information report in the case. It contains the confession that the appellant inflicted cuts on his wife. The learned Sessions Judge has excluded this portion and marked the rest of the statement, as Ex. P6. This, however, is not correct. In Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar it has been observed: