KAMBOJI VENKATARAMANNA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Accused 1 to 7 are the appellants. Eleven persons were charged in connexion with the murder of one Pullayya, a Vysya money lender, of 21 August 1932, on his way from his village called Thappetavaripalli to the railway station at Malakazemala which is at a distance of six or seven miles from his village. Accused 1 to 8 stood charged directly under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, whereas accused 1 to 7 and 9 to 11 were charged under Section 201 for having disposed of the dead body on that night, the murder itself having been committed in the afternoon It was only on 1 September 1932 that two gunny bags weighted with stone containing the parts of the body of the deceased without the head were found at the bottom of a deep pond about four miles from the scene of offence. The learned Sessions Judge acquitted accused 8 to 11, and convicted accused 1 to 7 of the offence of abetment of murder under Section 302 read with Section 114, Penal Code, and sentenced them to transportation for life. They were also convicted under Section 201, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment with a direction that both the sentences should run concurrently.

(2.) As regards the alleged participation of accused 1 to 8 in the actual murder, the case for the prosecution rests mainly on the evidence of an approver Fakeerappa (P.W. 7), Another witness, K. Kondappa who has been examined as P.W. 10, has deposed to an incident which, if true, may lend some slight corroboration to the story of the approver. As to the case for the prosecution in respect of the commission of the offence under Section 201, I.P.C., there is nothing besides the evidence of another approver Venkatasami (P.W. 8) in support of it. Before discussing the question of law raised in this case as regards the nature of the corroborative evidence in support of the evidence of an accomplice so as to warrant the conviction of the accused in a case of murder, it would be well to refer briefly to the evidence supplied by the approvers in this case. (After referring to the facts and evidence of the approvers and the other prosecution witnesses, his Lordship proceeded.) It is extremely difficult to hold that so many persons of different castes and professions would have made common cause as against the deceased and conspired together in order to put an end to his life. Even assuming the facts mentioned by P.W. 1 to be true, it seems to us that there is no adequate or substantial motive for the perpetration of such a heinous crime by all of them combining together in the manner alleged. Is it likely that within an hour and a half or two on the date of the occurrence, accused 6 could have arranged for the gathering of such a large number of people after getting scent of the deceased's travelling alone that way for the railway station, in order to waylay and make a murderous attack on him?

(3.) There are, in our opinion, several infirmities in the prosecution story and the evidence of the two approvers is not, apart from its being tainted evidence, free from discrepancies and suspicious later developments. We think it unsafe to rely upon P.W. 10 for the purpose of corroborating the approver, (P.W. 7). The evidence of P.W. 10 savours much of artificiality. If his evidence is discarded as untrustworthy, what is the position? As regards the offence of murder with which the appellants are charged we have to fall back only on-the evidence of the approver, (P.W. 7). The learned Sessions Judge seems to be of opinion that the evidence of one approver may be corroborated by the evidence of another approver. It is true that one approver speaks to the incidents connected with the murder and the other approver speaks to the incidents connected with the subsequent, disposal of the body in order to conceal the offence. The fact that they are accomplices in two different catagories of crime does not free their evidence from the taint attached to the evidence of an accomplice. Even assuming that the evidence of P.W. 8 can be regarded as coroborative in some way of the evidence of P.W. 7, is it not a case where the evidence of one approver is corroborated by the evidence of another approver? Is it not necessary that the evidence of an accomplice should be corroborrated in material particulars by independent evidence which is free from, the taint attached to the evidence of an accomplice? The answer to this query should in our opinion be in the affirmative.