ARAVDLLY SHANKAR Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Sri C. Praveen Kumar, the learned Counsel representing appellant-accused and the learned Additional Public Prosecutor.

(2.) This Criminal Appeal is filed against the judgment dated 7.7.1997 in Sessions Case No.73 of 1997 made by the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Hyderabad. The appellant-accused was convicted for the offence punishable under Section 307 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten years.

(3.) Facts in brief, are as hereunder: The victim Janardhan is an auto-trolley driver and the appellant-accused-Aravelly Shankar belongs to the same locality and the appellant-accused is a habitual offender and a desperate unsocial element of the locality and also a rowdy-sheeter of Gandhinagar Police Station, Secunderabad. It is the further case of the prosecution that the elder brother of the victim Lingam and the uncle of the accused Mutyalu are residents of Bagh Lingampally, Hyderabad and there are family disputes between them and Mutyalu sought the help of the accused in this regard and there was series of incidents. The victim, and his brother Lingam had lodged police complaints against the accused, and thereby, the accused bore grudge against the victim and his family and had decided to kill the victim. On the fateful day, on 12.8.1995 at about 7.30 p.m., the victim who was examined as P.W.I along with his friends P.Ws.2 and 3 and another had been chit-chatting at a vegetable shop of Bholakpur and the accused arrived there in an auto, pushed his friends aside, caught hold of the victim and stabbed him with a knife on the left side of his head and when P.W.1 fell down, the accused again attacked him and caused bleeding injuries. On seeing the same, the locality people gathered, and hence, the accused ran away. The victim was immediately shifted to the Police Station and then, to hospital for treatment and the police recorded the statement of P. W. 1 and registered the same as a case in Crime No.206 of 1995, Gandhinagar Police Station, and during the course of investigation police had examined the eye-witnesses, observed the scene of offence and apprehended the accused, and recovered the knife used for the commission of offence in presence of mediators, and on receipt of the wound certificate, ultimately, the police laid the charge-sheet.