YUVARAJ Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a case of murder for gain. It is alleged by the prosecution that on 17.8.2012, the Petitioner/Accused had committed the murder of his brother's mother-in-law by throttling her neck and thereafter, he decamped with her jewellery. The Trial Court, by Judgment dated 30.4.2014 in S.C. No. 14 of 2013 convicted the Accused as follows:

(2.) Heard the learned Counsel for the Petitioner/Accused and the learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the State.

(3.) The learned Counsel for the Petitioner contended that there are no eyewitnesses to the case and the entire prosecution case is based on circumstantial evidence. The learned Counsel assailed the evidence of Manonmani [PW 4], the daughter of the deceased, who in her evidence stated that, when she called her mother at 11.30 a.m. on 17.8.2012, she was told by her mother that the Accused is in the house and is watching Television. The learned Counsel submitted that her evidence is an improvement and that she had failed to state several facts to the Police when she was examined. The husband of the deceased, Manoharan [PW 2], was not in the house on the date of incident. He received information from his neighbour, Ragunath Mohan [PW 10] that his wife has fallen in the kitchen and so he instructed his brother Palanichamy [PW 1] to go to his house and find out the correct position. When Palanichamy [PW 1] went there, he found his sister-in-law dead and he lodged a Complaint, based on which, initially a case under Section 174, Cr.P.C. was registered by the Police. Only during autopsy Dr. Jeysingh [PW 23] found out that the deceased had died out of throttling of neck. Thereafter, the investigation took a different turn. In that circumstances, just because Manonmani [PW 4] had not stated certain facts when she was examined by the Police initially, it cannot be said that her evidence will become suspect.