Kannan vs The State of Kerala

P. T. Raman Nair, J.—The appellant stands convicted under sections 302 and 324 I.P.C. He has been sentenced to imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 25/- for the former offence and to imprisonment for six months for the latter. From about three weeks before the occurrence, which took place at about mid-night on the night of the 19th March 1955, the accused and the deceased and P. Ws. 1 to 8, a gang of agricultural laborers, had been camping in a shed on P. W. 14''s land in Vettiakonam Muri for the harvest. (P. W. 2 was the Moopan or leader. P. Ws. 3, 7 and 8 are P. W. 2''s sisters, and P. W. 6 his nephew. P. W. 1 is the husband of P. W. 3, and the accused the husband of P. W. 8. The deceased and his mother, P. W. 4, and aunt, P. W. 3, though not related to the rest were also, as we have seen, members of the gang). In the course of a few days the deceased, a bachelor, became intimate with the accused''s wife, P. W. 8, and was, with the active help and connivance of her sister''s husband, P. W. 1, prosecuting an intrigue with her, and on one occasion the accused all but caught them in the act in a field near the shed with P. W. 1 keeping watch. This naturally broke the peace of the camp and, in order to restore peace, P. W. 2 took and left his sister, P. W. 8, in her house in Pennukkara, about ten miles away. This was on the 17th March. At about midnight on the night of Saturday the 19th, when all were asleep in the shed, P. Ws. 2 and 3 woke up on hearing cries, and they found the accused stabbing the deceased in the neck with a pen-knife. (The medical evidence shows that the deceased suffered two incised wounds on the left side of the neck and a third on the right index finger. Of the two injuries on the neck one, cutting through the carotid artery, was necessarily fatal and must have caused more or less instantaneous death). They tried to catch him but he shook himself free and, after stabbing P. W. 1 who was sleeping near-by three times, inflicting injuries on the chest, right arm and right thigh, ran away southwards, knife in hand. P. Ws. 4 to 7, who had meanwhile woken up, saw him thus running away but they did not see the actual stabbing. A neighbor, P. W. 9, who came to the scene on hearing the cries also saw the accused running away. The deceased died on the spot. Early in the morning, P. W, 1 was taken to the Thiruvella hospital, six miles away, and there, on intimation sent by the hospital authorities, the Sub Inspector, P. W. 16, went at about 10 A. M. and recorded from him the statement, Ext. P. 1.

At about 4 P. M. on the 20th, the accused was caught in his brother''s house in Pennukkara by P. W. 10, an uncle of the deceased, and some other villagers who had got news of the crime. The police were sent for, and P. W. 16 and the Circle Inspector, P. W. 17, went to Pennukkara and arrested the accused at about 2 A. M. on the 21st. They produced him before the Magistrate, P. W. 15, at about 6 A. M., and two hours later P. W. 15 recorded from the accused the statement, P. 7, in which he confessed that he. had stabbed the deceased and P. W. 1 because they had spoiled his wife.

So stated, the case appears to be simple and straight-forward enough. But there are one or two very suspicious features which lead us to doubt whether it is altogether so straight-forward. Ext. P. 1 is the first information in the case, said to have been given by P. W. 1 to P. W. 16 at the hospital at about 10 A. M. on the 20th. It is a fairly long statement, but there is not a word mentioned there about the deceased or the injuries suffered by him. All that it says is that at dead of night the appellant stabbed P. W. 1 and ran away. It is nobody''s case that P. W. 1 became unconscious as a result of the injuries he suffered (nor is this likely having regard to the nature of those injuries), and it is obvious that P. W. 1 must have been aware of the murder of the deceased when he made that statement although he might not have seen the actual stabbing. It would, therefore, appear that, for some reason or other, P. W. 1 was intent on suppressing the fact of the murder.

The evidence is that P. W. 1 was taken to the hospital by P. W. 2 and 3, and P. W. 3''s evidence shows that she was present when P. W. 16 recorded Ext. P. 1 from P. W. 1. And yet the evidence of P. W. 16 is that he knew nothing about the murder until he stumbled on the body when he went to the scene that afternoon to investigate P. W. l''s complaint on which he had registered a case u/s 324 I. P. C. This, of course, is something which we find it impossible to believe if, indeed, P. W. 3 was an eye witness to the murder and P. W. 1 was a person who suffered injuries in the course of the same transaction and knew about the murder immediately after it had taken place. P. W. 3''s evidence, on the other hand, is that she was questioned by P. W. 16 at the hospital along with her husband and that both of them told him all that had happened. Two inferences are possible, both equally damaging to the prosecution. One is that neither P. W. 1 nor P. W. 3 told P. W. 16 anything about the murder, in which case their present evidence becomes unacceptable. The other is that they did say something and that what they said (which must necessarily have been recorded) has been suppressed. Ext. P. 1 itself furnishes some indication that the latter might have been the case, for although the case is that it was recorded on the 20th March it begins by giving the date as the 21st March. In the end also we find that the signature of P. W. 16 was first dated 21-3-1955 and that the figure ''1'' in ''21'' has been converted into a zero to make the date 20-3-1955. However that might be, it becomes difficult to accept the evidence of P. Ws. 1 to 3 in the character which they have now assumed.

The only other eye witness, P. W. 2, stands on no better footing. He was among the persons who took P. W. 1 to the hospital and, in the ordinary course, must have been present when P. W. 16 went there. There is, however, no evidence on the point, and it is possible that he went back to the scene where the deceased''s body was lying. Yet, he was not available either at the hospital or at the scene when P. W. 16 went there that afternoon and held an inquest over the body. (P. W. 16''s evidence is that he held the inquest at about 3 p. m. on the 20th March. Ext. P. 3, the mahazar he prepared of the scene, however, bears the date 21-3-1955, and it looks as if all the records in the case were prepared only on that date). Of the witnesses who have now come forward, only P. Ws. 4 and 5, the mother and the aunt of the deceased, were available at the scene and only they were examined at the inquest. P. W. 2 had to be traced and taken to the police station where he was examined at about 4 p. m. on the 21st, and it would appear from the records that P. W. 3 also was first examined by the police only on that day. P. W. 2 has no explanation to offer as to why he made himself scarce, and the explanation offered by the learned Public Prosecutor, that being a poor Pulaya he might have run away for fear, does not strengthen the prosecution case. For, it might well be said, as has been said on behalf of the appellant, that the fear was due to the fact that he (P. W. 2) himself had had something to do with the murder. Otherwise, P. W. 2 who was the Moopan of the gang and whose brother-in-law, P. W. 1, had suffered injuries Should have been the first to go and inform the police even though the offender was another brother-in-law of his.

There has certainly been a great deal of bungling in this case and, although we are not prepared to assert that there has been concoction, the circumstances already referred to are certainly susceptible of such an inference. Therefore, we think it unsafe to act on the evidence of P. Ws. 1 to 7.

So far as P. W. 9 is concerned, he only saw a man running away, some distance from him, at dead of night, and his identification of that man as the appellant cannot safely be accepted.

There remains only the confession of the appellant whose case, we might say, has been that he was not at the scene at all. Sunday the 20th being a holiday, he had left the camp for Pennukkara on the 19th evening, taking his week''s earnings with him, and he heard of the occurrence only when he was captured by the villagers and handed over to the police. He was tortured by the police and tutored to make a false confession which, through fear, he made to the Magistrate before whom he was produced. The case with regard to the confession might or might not be true. But, it is to be remembered that it was recorded from the appellant when he was still fresh from police custody and had no time to reflect. It was recorded in the house of the Magistrate, P. W. 15, and, having regard to the fact that the appellant was produced before him as a murderer, it is scarcely likely that P. W. 15 would have altogether dismissed the police officers from the spot. In these circumstances, we hesitate to act upon the confession especially since it was retracted at the earliest opportunity and has secured no acceptable corroboration.

We might mention that the pen-knife, M. O. 1, was handed over to the police by P. W. 10 as having been found on the appellant at the time of his capture. It has not been shown by chemical examination or otherwise that M. O.1 was stained with blood, and even if it be true that it was with the appellant nothing turns on that circumstance. We allow the appeal, set aside the conviction and sentence recorded against the appellant, and acquit him. He will be set at liberty forthwith.