CHELLATURAI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole accused in a case of murder on being found guilty under Section 302 I.P.C and awarded life imprisonment by the Court of Session, Kanyakumari Division at Nagercoil, in S.C. No. 229 of 2002, has challenged the said judgment of conviction and sentence in this appeal.

(2.) Briefly the case of the prosecution is as follows:

(3.) Advancing his arguments on behalf of the appellant, the learned Counsel would submit that in the instant case, the prosecution examined two eyewitnesses, namely P.W.1 and P.W.2 who are the wife and the co-brother of the deceased respectively and they are closely related to the deceased and hence, if the test of careful scrutiny is applied, their evidence should have been rejected by the trial Court on the ground of the discrepancies in the material facts and further in the instant case, the medical evidence did not corroborate the prosecution case. The learned Counsel added further that the lower Court should have rejected the testimony of P.W.1 and P.W.2. According to the defence, at the time of occurrence, there was a wordy quarrel following the same both the family members were sleeping and at about 02.00 a.m., it was the deceased who removed the roof of the house of the accused and jumped inside the house and at that time, the accused tied the deceased in a wooden pillar and rushed to the police station to give a complaint and at that time, it was the deceased who tried to outrage the modesty of the wife of the accused and at that juncture, it was the wife of the accused who gave him a blow with Aakkathi and as a result of it, the deceased died. The defence theory is clearly spoken to by D.W.1, the daughter of the accused, which remained unshaken, should have been accepted and the theory put forth by P.W.1 and P.W.2 should have rejected. Under such circumstances, the prosecution has not proved its case beyond all reasonable doubts.