EMPEROR Vs. BASAPPA RUDRAPPA DHAMANGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The three accused were charged before the Acting Sessions Judge of Belgaum with having committed the murder of one Sakreva on the night of April 6, the third accused being charged in the alternative under Secs.502 and 109 of the Indian Indian Penal Code with abetment of the murder. Accused Nos. 1 and 2 were found guilty under Section 302 and accused No. 3 was found guilty of abetment under as. 302 and 109 by the Sessions Judo-e disagreeing with the assessors. All were sentenced to transportation for life. The case for the prosecution was as follows. Sakreva was a Jogti woman living alone. Close by lived Motiappa a carpenter and his wife accused No. 3. Monappa became too intimate with Sakreva with the result that accused No. 3 finding her remonstrances of no avail instigated accused Nos. 1 and 2 to murder Sakreva.

(2.) Sakreva was last seen alive on the evening of April 6. On the evening of the8 her dead body was discovered in a tank a short distance away from her hut. It was stripped of clothes and tied by a rope and weighed down by two stones. When her hut was searched a quilt upon a charpoy and two baskets were found stained with blood. Apart from the evidence of Tangeva, wife of accused No. 1, which I shall deal with hereafter, two witnesses implicate accused Nos. 1 and 2.

(3.) Shivlinga Kempanna (Exh 6) stated that on the evening of the 6 he saw accused No. 1 at the door of his hut and accused No. 2 at the door of the hut of the deceased. He asked them what they were doing and accused No. 1 said that Sakreva was ill and as he could not assist on account of his caste accused No. 2 who was a Lingayet was giving her milk and rice. Shivbasappa (Exh. 7) was watching his field that night. He heard a noise and called out when accused Nos. 1 and 2 answered him. They each took a stone and went away. The Judge considered there was no reason why these witnesses should not be believed. Ganappa Basappa (Exh. 12) was called by the Patel on the morning of the 9 to a Panchnama over the dead body. The nest day he attended at the hut of the deceased when a quilt and two baskets stained with blood were attached. Accused No. 2 then took the Panch to the field of the Police Patel and pointed out the place where there were marks of two stones having been removed. He took them to the tank, went into the water, and brought out a Sari which had been hidden in the silt That Sari was identified as belonging to the deceased. Exhibit 8, the Patil, said that he compared the marks where two atones had been removed with the stones found tied to the body and they tallied. Accused No. 2 also produced Us. 19 which he said he had collected for building a house. The prosecution suggests that the money was given by accused No. 3 as a reward for committing the murder.