PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. ABDUL RAHIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question to be answered in this appeal against acquittal of the accused of the offence under Section 302 Indian Penal Code is whether the Sessions Judge, Nellore was right in convicting the accused, Syed Abdul Rahim under part II of Section 304 Indian Penal Code after holding, as he did, that the accused had intentionally and not accidentally pierced the knife below the chest which went deep producing internal Injury of " x " x " right in the middle and front part of the heart to which the deceased succumbed within a few minutes.

(2.) The circumstances under which and the manner in which the said offence was committed admits, to a large extent, of no dispute. It is common ground that on 25-10-1963 at about 2.00 P.M. the deceased went to the shop of the accused and demanded back 2 annas which the latter owed to him. Thereupon the accused pushed him saying 'Jare Kaminan" i.e., 'get away mean fellow". The deceased at once retorted and said that the accused and his father are 'Kamina' and not he. The accused thereupon fisted the deceased on his chest twice or thrice saying how dared he abuse his father. P.W. 1 intervened and separated the two. The accused remained at the shop. The deceased went to a distance of 10 feet from the shop near the sleeper fencing of the railway. Abdul Razaak, the younger brother of the accused came meanwhile and asked the accused what the disturbance was about. The accused told him that the deceased had abused their father. When interrogated by Abdul Razak, the deceased denied to have ever abused their father. At that time the accused was cutting plantains with knife. On the denial of the deceased he (accused) rushed towards him and questioning whether he had not abused his father, pierced the knife, which was in his hand, at the lower end of the chest which went two inches deep. As he removed the knife blood gushed out of the wound. When the deceased was about to fall, the accused threw the knife, caught hold of the deceased, took him on his shoulders and carried him in the railway hospital nearby. The doctor was not there. He fetched him. The doctor found the deceased in a collapsing state. All his efforts to revive or save the deceased proved futile. This, in short, is the prosecution version.

(3.) The accused admitted the prosecution case in general. All that he said was that he never wanted to harm the deceased and did not intend to pierce the deceased with the knife but that he was cutting the plantains at the time when the deceased denied before his brother that he ever abused their father, that without realising that he was having a knife in his hand he pushed the deceased saying 'go away' and incidentally the knife pierced into the chest of the deceased. The knife thrust was thus involuntary, and was a sheer accident.