IN RE: KANNAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) APPELLANT Kannan has been convicted under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, for having caused the death of his child Ambujam. alias Marimuthu, aged about 4 years, at about 1 -30 p.m. on 25th December, 1967 at Nannadu village and sentenced to imprisonment for life. He has also been convicted under Section 326, Indian Penal Code, on a charge under Section 307, Indian Penal Code, (second part) for having caused several injuries to his wife P. W. 1, Amaravathi, with a knife, in the course of the same transaction.

(2.) THE facts of this case are in a short compass. The appellant suspected his wife, P.W. 1, of being in illicit intimacy with Poongan, his elder brother's son, and also suspected that she had taken a treasure trove from a broken wall of the dilapidated house and concealed the same. These facts put forward as motive for the attack made on P. W. 1 appear from the evidence of P. W. 10, Duraisami Josiyar, and P. W. 11, Alagirisami Udayar. In fact P.W. 1 has referred to the same in her evidence, Exhibit P -2 in the Committal Court and the same has also been admitted by the appellant during his examination under Section 342, Criminal Procedure Code, in the Sessions Court.

(3.) P . W. 1, Amaravathi, the wife of the appellant, turned hostile in the Sessions Court and she pleaded ignorance as to how she sustained injuries and how her child Ambujam met with her death. But her evidence in the Committal Court has been marked as Exhibit P -2 under Section 288, Criminal Procedure Code, and it has been accepted by the learned Sessions Judge in view of the evidence of P. Ws. 2 to 5 in this case. In Exhibit P -2, P. W. 1 has stated that when she and her husband were returning to their village from Villupuram and when they were near the Nanaadu Rice Mill, at about 1p.m. on the date of occurrence, her husband stabbed her with a knife on several parts of her body and also the child she was carrying, with the result that the child died on the spot and she fell down unconscious. P. W. 2 Ramayee, the child of the appellant aged eight years who was coming behind her parents did not actually see the occurrence, but she saw the dead body of the child and noticed her mother having injuries. She was not examined in the Committal Court. P. W. 3, Varalakshmi, who was vending things in the betel shop of her father near the Rice Mill heard the cries of P. W. 2 and looked in that direction and actually saw the appellant stabbing P. W. 1 with something in his hand and P. W. 1 sustaining bleeding injuries. But she did not even notice as to whether P. W. 1 carried a child at that time. P. W. 4 Abdul Latheef, an accountant in the Rice Mill near the place of occurrence, saw P. W. 1 running with bleeding injuries and falling near the Banyan tree close to the Rice Mill. He saw the appellant running eastwards. P. W. 5, Guruchandran, who was working as a gangman on the road near the Rice Mill heard the alarm and saw the appellant running south with blood stains on his shirt and dhoti and when he questioned him, as he knew him before, the appellant dropped the pen knife which he was carrying and ran away. The appellant appeared at the Police Station and made the statement in pursuance of which P. W. 5 was traced and the knife was recovered. P. W. 1 gave the report, Exhibit P -11, to the Village Munsif P. W. 13, Balakrisbna Naidu, who came to the spot on being sent for by P.W. 4 Abdul Latheef. Thus the evidence of P. W. 1 in the Committal Court marked as Exhibit P -2 is fully corroborated by the evidence of P. Ws. 2 to 5 and the conduct of the appellant in appearing at the Police Station.