NACHIMUTHU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appeal is directed against the judgment of learned I Additional Sessions Judge-cum-Chief Judicial Magistrate, Erode in S. C. No. 87 of 1998 dated 9. 10. 1998 convicting and sentencing the accused Nachimuthu for life imprisonment under section 302 I. P. C. and two years rigorous imprisonment under section 324 I. P. C. and ordering the sentences to run concurrently. The accused is the appellant.

(2.) THE Inspector of Police, Chennimalai Police Station has laid a charge sheet against the accused Nachimuthu alleging that the accused Nachimuthu had frequent quarrels with his wife Ponnal as a result of which Ponnal was living separately along with her son Krishnamoorthi in a house situate near her brother Nachimuthu's residence at canal bank in Ammankoil Puthur and when the deceased Nachimuthu refused to accede to the request of the accused to send his wife Ponnal with him, the accused, on 25. 5. 1997 at about 2. 00 p. m. went to the house of the deceased Nachimuthu at canal bank in Ammankoil Puthur and caused injuries to Prakash, the son of the deceased on his back with knife and on hearing the noise, when the deceased came out of the house, the accused, with the intention to murder the deceased Nachimuthu, stabbed him with the knife on his chest as a result of which the deceased Nachimuthu died and thereby the accused committed the offences punishable under sections 302 and 324 I. P. C.

(3.) TO prove the charges, the prosecution has examined 15 witnesses - P. Ws. 1 to 15, marked 24 documents - Exs. P-1 to P-24, besides M. Os. 1 to 14. The prosecution case, as deduced from the evidence, is as follows:-