MURUGIAN ALIAS MURUGESAN Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS again is a case where the accused Murugayyan alias Murugesa Pandithan has been convicted under Section 302, I. P. C. , for the murder of his wife Jayam alias Jayalakshmi and sentenced to imprisonment for life by the learned Sessions judge of East Tanjore division.

(2.) THE offence is said to have been committed on the 28th March 1956, at peralam, Nannilam taluk, Tanjore Dt. The charge against the appellant was that he committed the murder by intentionally causing the death of his wife, the said jayalakshmi, by stabbing her with a bichuva and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 302, I, P. C. The prosecution case was that the accused had married the deceased, who was his sister's daughter, about five years back and they were living together in the village of Serugudi. On the 24th March 1956, the accused had been to Theralandur and returned to his house the next morning at about 5-30 a. m. , when he found the door of his house kept closed. On his beckoning, his wife opened the door, and when he went inside he found one periaswami standing near the granary in the house. The accused suspected criminal intimacy between the said Periaswarni and the deceased and beat periaswami and also stabbed him. After doing this, he asked his wife to clear out of the house and then locked the house and went away to his mother's house once again at Theralandur. Periaswami, who was beaten by the accused, went to the peralam Police Station at 10-45 a. m. and lodged a complaint against the accused, stating therein that he was accosted in the early hours of the 25th March 1956, near a tank and was stabbed by the accused at two or three places with a bichuva. The complaint, however, did not give any reason as to the stabbing by the accused, though the complaint stated the scene of offence to be a place different from the one where it had actually taken place. After the complaint was registered, the head constable at the Peralam Police Station, P. W. 12, in this case, sent the said Periaswami to the Mayuram hospital for treatment and took up investigation. The head constable after proceeding to Serugudi village and reaching there at 4 p. m. , found the house of the accused locked. It was broken open in the presence of the village munsif, and a search was made for the bichuva with which Periaswami was stabbed. The bichuva could not be recovered; but instead only broken pieces of glass bangles were found in front of the house. After examining a few witnesses and putting a separate lock over the house of the accused, the head constable would appear to have gone in search of the accused to the village of Vadugakudi, one mile away from Serugudi. In that village, the head constable found only P. W. 6, the brother of the deceased. The deceased had however gone to the house of her brother, P. W. 6, at about 8 p. m. , on the 25th march or 26th March (the date is not definite) and it is in evidence that P. W. 6 did not question her as to why she had gone there, because he had not been on talking terms with her. In the meanwhile the accused returned to Serugudi on the 25th March 1956, and found that his house had been locked by a different lock from the one which he had himself put. On enquiries he found that Periaswami, whom he had beaten and stabbed, had filed a complaint against him and that in connection therewith, the police had broken open his house and made a search and put another lock thereon after the search. This information appears to have perturbed the accused and he proceeded to Vadugukudi to find out if his wife had gone to the house of her brother, P. W. 6. When ho reached the house of P. W. 6 and when P. W. 6 came out, the accused asked P. W. 6 whether his wife had come to his house. On his reply that the deceased had come to his house and was sleeping inside, the accused is said to have remonstrated with P. W. 6 as to why he should be keeping that prostitute in his house. When questioned by P. W. 6 the accused narrated what had taken place on the morning of the 25th March 1956, between Periaswami and his wife and what he did with Periaswami himself and how a complaint had been lodged against him by Periaswami and in consequence of which there was a warrant pending against him and his idea to appear before the police station at Peralam along with his wife, the deceased, who would have to be examined as a witness. On hearing this, P. W. 6 would appear" to have questioned his sister and she is said to have admitted that there was illicit intimacy between herself and Periaswami. Notwithstanding the insistence of P. W. 6 upon the accused to stay with him for the night, the accused wanted to go away that night itself to Peralam with his wife; and similarly the deceased also would appear to have had no objection to go with him in the night. At about midnight both the accused and the deceased left the house of P. W. 6 and proceeded to peralam, nearly seven miles away from Vadugakudi. As the accused would have it, both he and his wife slept in the Poonthottam river bed and then started for peralam Police Station, which they reached at about 5-30 a. m. The Sub-Inspector had not come to the Police Station till then, and therefore, both the accused and his wife went to the neighbouring tank, cleaned their teeth and after taking coffee sat near an arasa tree and then went to the Police Station at about 7 or 7-15 a. m. on the 28th March.

(3.) ACCORDING to the evidence, the Peralam Police Station seems to lie at a distance of 10 or 15 yards to the north of the main road, and there is a vacant space in front of the Police Station enclosed by that tis of cross bamboos in the middle. According to the prosecution the accused stabbed the deceased with a bichuva four or five times near a lamp post, standing on the northern margin of the road in front of the Police Station, and this stabbing was witnessed by police constable and the Sub-Inspector, as also the sweeper of the Station, who were all present. They rushed to the place and caught hold of the accused with the blood-stained bichuva, which was subsequently wrested from his hand and took him to the Police station and put him in the lock-up. The stabbing was also witnessed by a passerby, p. W. 1, and also by a peon in the Sub-Registrar's Office, P. W. 5. P. W. 2, the sweeper, it was that cried that the accused was stabbing the deceased with a knife, which attracted the attention of P. W. 1 and P. W. 5. After receiving the stabs, the deceased fell down into a small ditch running by the roadside. The bichuva is said to have been kept by the accused inside a cloth bag with the point of the bichuva protruding out before the stabbing took place. The Sub-Inspector and the two constables, who were in the Station, caught hold of the accused and took him inside the Station, while the deceased was carried by P. W. 2 to the hospital, lying one furlong to the east of the Police Station. The Sub-inspector, p. W. 14, heard the cry of P. W. 2, when he was just making entries in the General diary, by sitting on a chair in the front verandah, and he saw the accused stabbing on the buttock with a bichuva. The two contables, P. Ws. 4 and 9, also saw the accused giving the stab on the left flank of the deceased. These witnesses, however, do not speak anything as to what exactly transpired between the accused and the deceased before the actual stabbing took place and what exactly it was that should have provoked the accused to commit this act of stabbing his wife in front of the Police Station in presence of not merely the Sub-Inspector and the two constables but also the other witnesses, such as P. Ws. 1, 2 and 5. A statement, Ex. P-1, was recorded by the Sub-Inspector from the deceased at 7-30 p. m. and it is the first information report in the case. In that statement, the deceased stated that her husband took her from Vadugakudi to Peralam and that while going on the road in front of the Police Station, he stabbed her three or four times with a bichuva. Except stating at the end that suspecting her character her husband stabbed her like that, she also did not say anything as to what exactly was the immediate provocation for the stabbing in that open place in front of the police Station.