IN RE: SUDUKATTAN ALIAS ARUMUGAM Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, Sudukattan alias Arumugham, stood charged under S. 302, I.P.C. for having committed the murder of one Nondi alias Mani by stabbing him with a knife on his abdomen, at about 9 P.M. on 2nd June 1976, at the junction of Basin Bridge Road, Powder Mills Road and Pulianthope High Road, Madras, as a result of which the said Nondi alias Mani died on 3rd June 1976.

(2.) The prosecution case is that the accused and the deceased Nondi alias Mani were eking out their livelihood by committing thefts at the electricity power house situate in Basin Bridge. Even sometime prior to the occurrence in this case, the accused was serving imprisonment in the jail for a theft committed by him. It is also the prosecution case that Nondi alias Mani used to visit the house of the accused and had illicit intimacy with Manonmani, the wife of the accused. Subsequent to his release from the jail, the accused used to quarrel with her often charging her with illicit intimacy with Nondi alias Mani.

(3.) It is the further case of the prosecution that by about 9 P.M. on 2nd June 1976, at the junction of Basin Bridge Road, Powder Mills Road and Pulianthope High Road, at Madras, the accused and Nondi alias Mani, having knives in their hands, were preparing to attack each other. There was also a crowd witnessing the same. The eyewitnesses to the occurrence further state that Nondi alias Mani, with the knife in his hands, stabbed the accused Sudukattan alias Arumugham on the stomach. Immediately thereupon, the accused, with his knife, attempted to stab Nondi alias Mani, but Nondi alias Mani while warding off the same received the stab on his left hand little finger. Again, the accused dealt a stab with the knife on the stomach of Nondi. After receiving the stab Nondi began to run along Gandhinagar Third Street. He ran a distance of about 20-feet and thereafter started running into Gandhinagar Fourth Street. The accused also followed chasing him. But, Nondi alias Mani, who was pressing the injury on his stomach with his hands, fell down with face upwards in front of Door No. 114, Gandhinagar Fourth Street. The accused on seeing Nondi falling down ran towards east, dropping the knife in his hands on the spot itself. The knife which Nondi was having also dropped down from his hands.