REPANA NAGANNA ALIAS NAGULU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the night of the 25th- 26/04/1958, a young woman by name, Er]a Venkatasubbamma, was stabbed to death while she was sleeping under a pandili in front of her hut at Besthapalli, hamlet of the village of Chinnamandem. In connection with that incident, one Repana Naganna alias Nagulu was tried by the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Cuddapah on a charge of murder, convicted and sentenced to death. The learned Judge submitted the proceedings to the High Court under Section 374 Cr.P.C. for confirmation of the sentence of death, and the accused sent an appeal from jail against his conviction and sentence.

(2.) The Referred Trial and the connected Criminal Appeal were heard by a Division Bench composed of Krishna Rao and Sanjeeva Row Nayudu JJ. As there was a difference of opinion between them, the case has been laid before me under Sections 378 and 429 Cr.P.C.(The judgments of both the learned judges proceed purely on appreciation of evidence, Krishna Rao J. thinking that the evidence was doubtful and that the benefit of doubt mast bo given to the accused and Sanjeeva Row Nayudu J. taking the opposite view and being for confirmation of the conviction and sentence. In this judgment the third judge Hasi Reddy J. takes the view of Krishna Rao J. In the course of the judgment while discussing the evidence, Basi Reddy J. observed as follows):

(3.) The fact that a number of witnesses bear false testimony to a given fact is of no consequence. That evidence is to be weighed and not counted, is axiomatic. Where the evidence of witnesses is not convincing, it would be a fruitless task to search for the motives which might have actuated them to come forward and give such evidence. In the present case it may be suspicion: it may be moral certainty; or it may be something worse. In this connection the observations of Spens C.J., delivering the judgment of the Federal Court in Piare Dusadh v. Emperor, 1944 Mad WN Cr. 1 at p. 18 : (AIR 1944 FC 1 at p. 17), are apposite :