DANDLA POSHETTY Vs. STATE OF A P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When this appeal came for hearing before a bench of this Court, on 16th of August 2004, it remanded the matter to the trial Court for recording the evidence of Master Shekar, son of the accused and deceased, as the Court found that he was the prime witness in the matter. Now the statement has been recorded and submitted to this Court by the trial Court. The allegations against the accused were that in the intervening night of 21/22-12-2000 at Kotaiah Camp of Varni Mandal, he committed murder of his wife named Narsavva by axing her to death. A charge was framed under Section 302 of I.P.C. He pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. Prosecution examined 12 witnesses in the first instance and on remand, P.W.13 was also examined. The trial Court convicted the accused for the offence under Sec. 302 of I.P.C. and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. He was also find with Rs.2,000/-, in default, he has to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of six months.

(2.) The prosecution story was that the deceased and accused were husband and wife and they were sleeping in a room along with P.W.13 a minor child of the couple. During the night, the husband-accused hacked the deceased to death. One of the main objections taken by the learned Counsel for the defence is that the occurrence had taken place on 20-12-2000 and P.W.13 was aged between 4 and 5 at that time. His statement was now recorded on 20th of October 2004 therefore it will not be safe to rely on his testimony to convict the accused because, whatever he had seen at the age of 4 to 5, would not perhaps be narrated by him after about 5 years. We will consider this objection after going into the testimony of other witnesses.

(3.) P.W.1 is the mother of the deceased. She stated that the deceased was her daughter and she was given in marriage to the accused about 15 years before. Accused was a resident of Chandoor village. After the marriage, the accused and the deceased lived happily and three children were born to them. Two of them died while one male child is alive. A year before the death of her daughter, the accused and the deceased quarreled with each other and a panchayat was held before the village Sarpanch. Accused agreed before the panchayat that thereafter he would not harass the deceased. On the day of occurrence she, her husband and deceased attended the marriage of one Balraj and when they returned to their house by 9 p.m., she and her daughter-in-law slept in one hut and the accused slept along with his wife and child in another hut. During the midnight, her grandson Shaker came to their hut. He was weeping and he informed her that the accused had hacked the deceased with an axe on stomach and killed her. Immediately she and her daughter-in-law went towards the hut of the accused and noticed that the deceased was lying in a pool of blood. She went to the Police Station Varni and filed a written complaint. Police examined her and recorded her statement. Ex.P-1 was the complaint given by her to the Police. She was put to long cross-examination, but nothing worthwhile was stated by her which could be of any help to the defence. She denied the suggestion that Narsawa, the deceased had left the house of accused fora period of one year without the knowledge of accused. She also stated in her cross- examination that during that night, her husband was not in the house. He had slept in the same village in the house of his eldest daughter.