NAGO ATMARAMJI KOHALE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal filed by the accused against the judgment of the Sessions Judge, Amravati, in Session Case. No. 4 of 1975 convicting him for offences punishable under section 302 and 309 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life for the offence under section 302 and simple imprisonment for three months for the offence under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) According to the prosecution, the accused, who is a young boy aged about 18 years, had assaulted the deceased Shila, daughter of Balaji Deshmukh, aged about 12 years, at about 6 or 7 a.m. on 8-10-1974. The girl Shila was a resident of the same village Bahama where the accused was also residing with his parents. The girl used to go to the school at village Jarud which is about two miles from Bahada. The deceased girl and other girl students about six in number, used to go daily from, Bahada to Jarud in the morning for attending the school. On the day of the incident, as usual, the girls were going to the school at about 6 a.m. The accused went behind the girls and when the girls reached the spot near the garden land of Ghormade on the cart road between Bahada and Jarud, he caught the hand of P.W. 4 Shalini. He had an open knife in his right hand. The girl Shalini gave a jerk and slipped away. Thereafter, the accused caught hold of the hand of the deceased Shila and gave her repeated knife blows on her person as a result of which the girl Suffered a number of injuries and died on the spot. After this, the accused ran towards Warud. According to the prosecution, thereafter he swallowed something which was a poisonous substance and thus he tried to end his own life. He was apprehended in Shaniwarpeth at Warud by the complainant Mahadeorao Chintuji Patankar who is a resident of village Bahada. The accused was immediately taken to the Police Station at Warud. In the Police Station itself during his search, the knife used by him for attacking Shila was recovered from him among other things. He was immediately arrested and sent to the Medical Officer. The Medical Officer noticed symptoms of consumption of a poison similar to the poison for killing rats. It also appears from the record that the clothes of the accused were also attached from his person and the Chemical Analyser's report indicates that the knife as well as the clothes seized from the person of the accused had human blood stains.

(3.) During the course of investigation, the dead body of Shila was also sent, for post-mortem examination to Dr. Vidyadhar Dhole (P.W. 7). The doctor found as many as 15 incised wounds on the person of the deceased. All these injuries were ante-mortem. According to the doctor, the probable cause of death was shock caused by external and internal hemorrhage caused by the injury to the vessels, internal organs and multiple external injuries. According to him, the surface injury No. 12 taken along with the cut of external iliac vessel was individually sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. Similarly, injury No. 9 taken with the injury to the intestines and injury to the left kidney was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. He, further opined that death could be instantaneous. After conducting the usual investigation into the matter, the accused was then prosecuted for the aforesaid offences.