LAKSHMI JANI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A tribal lady from an interior village in the district of Koraput, the appellant stands convicted under S. 302 of the I.P.C. and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life for murdering her husband Jagannath Jani (to be described hereinafter as the 'deceased') in their dwelling house at Bagra on or about the 26th December, 1980 and under S. 201 of the Penal Code having been sentenced thereunder to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year for causing evidence of the commission of murder to disappear in order to screen herself from legal punishment by burying the dead body of the deceased whose head had been severed from the trunk portion at Chuagada where there had been storage of water for use by the villagers.

(2.) It is not disputed that the deceased had died a homicidal death and the head portion could be severed by means of M.O.I, (an axe) and M.O.II (a Katari). According to the prosecution, these two instruments had been seized in the course of investigation on production by the appellant from her house. There was no witness to the commission of murder or with regard to the other offence of causing the evidence of the commission of murder to disappear. The prosecution has relied on an extra-judicial confession said to have been made by the appellant before P.W. 1, the first informant and other two co-villagers (P.Ws. 2 and 3) which, as laid down by the Supreme Court in AIR 1962 SC 605, K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra, is direct evidence of the guilt of an accused and not merely a piece of circumstantial evidence, a statement said to have been made by the appellant before her co-villagers that she would show the place where she laid the dead body of the deceased and her showing them the place where the dead body was found, the recoveries of M.Os. I and II suspected to be the weapons of attack on production by her from her house in the course of investigation and the recovery of blood-stained earth from inside her house. The learned trial Judge has accepted the prosecution case, dispelled the theory of the innocence of the appellant as untrue and convicted her in respect of the two offences.

(3.) Appearing on behalf of the appellant, Mr. Routray has contended that the evidence with regard to the extra-judicial confession is unworthy of credence and could not have been accepted and the other evidence of a circumstantial nature is of no better character and even if accepted, would not warrant the conviction of the appellant in respect of either of the two charges. It has been submitted on behalf of the State that the order of conviction is well-founded.