IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD FRIDAY, THE SECOND DAY OF DECEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN Present HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL APPEAL No.1265 of 2008 Between: The State of A.P. ... Appellant AND Pingili Madhusudhana Prasad. ... Respondent The Court made the following: HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL APPEAL No.1265 OF 2008 JUDGMENT: The Criminal Appeal is directed against the acquittal of the accused in S.C.No.29 of 2005, on the file of the Additional Assistant Sessions Judge, Eluru, by judgment, dated 13.09.2006, in respect of an offence punishable under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, ‘IPC’). 2. The Sub-Inspector of Police, Eluru II Town (L&O) Police Station filed a charge sheet in Crime No.31 of 2004 alleging that Katuri Nalini, working as a Staff Nurse in Government Head Quarters Hospital, at Eluru, is the wife of the accused who is a registered Medical Practitioner. They were married 15 years earlier and were blessed with a daughter Deepthi Lakshmi. The accused was addicted to liquor and contracting loans and pressing his wife to discharge them. He was ill- treating her and subjecting to mental and physical cruelty by answering his calls of nature inside the house etc. Many times, Nalini and Deepthi Lakshmi were informing the behaviour of the accused to Tallapragada Sadasivarao, brother of Nalini, Katuri Varalakshmi, mother and Tallapragada Revathi, Pulavarthi Bhargavi and Mynampati Vanaja. The accused was also proclaiming that he will marry another woman if Nalilni dies and the harassment was also witnessed by Kalli Sudhakar and Kocherlakota Vijaya Kishore. The unbearable torture and abetment led the accused to inject a poisonous injection to herself on 29.01.2004 at about 4:00 PM writing a suicide note. She died on the spot and on the report of Sadasiva Rao, the crime was registered and investigated into. Material objects were seized at the scene under a mediators report and rough sketch was also prepared. The inquest and post mortem examination were conducted over the dead body of the deceased and after chemical analysis, the final opinion on the cause of death was given. Hence, the charge. 3. The copies of the documents were furnished to the accused on his entering appearance after the offence was taken cognizance by the II Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Eluru in P.R.C.No.91 of 2004. On committal to the Court of Session, the case was made over to the trial Court which framed a charge under Section 306 IPC to which the accused pleaded not guilty. P.Ws.1 to 10 were examined and Exs.P.1 to P.8 and M.Os.1 to 7 and Ex.C1 were marked during trial. The accused denied the incriminating circumstances appearing in the evidence when he was examined under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and no defence evidence was adduced. 4. The trial Court rendered the impugned judgment referring to the evidence in detail and firstly opining that the accused and Nalini were married 15 years earlier and Nalini died at her house at Eluru on 29.01.2004. The trial Court also concluded from the evidence that Nalini died by committing suicide with the aid of a poisonous injection. The evidence of P.W.3 that Nalini had no cause for committing suicide and the evidence of P.W.4 about finding marks on the neck and blackening of the shoulder were disregarded in the absence of any reference to such aspects in their statements to the police. While the trial Court had accepted, notwithstanding some omissions in the prosecution evidence, that the accused was cruel and inhuman towards his wife, the trial Court felt that even if the wife was frustrated with the conduct of the husband, Ex.C.1 suicide note showed Nalini, who wrote the suicide note in her own hand to have made no reference to the accused. The evidence of the Investigating Officer- P.W.9 that Nalini made attempts to commit suicide four or five times earlier was also noted to presume existence of suicidal tendencies in her and any instigation or intentional aid or act of facilitation to commit suicide cannot be deduced from the evidence within the parameters of Sections 107 and 306 IPC. In that view the trial Court found it unsafe to accept the prosecution version about the guilt of the accused for the offence for which he was charged. 5. The State, through the Learned Public Prosecutor, had preferred the present appeal contending that the finding of the trial Court about harassment of the wife for money should have led to satisfaction of the ingredients of Section 306 IPC and mere crying by the accused on the death of his wife could not have been a ground for acquittal. 6. Sri Rudresh Deshpande, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor /the appellant and Sri K.Suresh Reddy, learned counsel for the accused are heard. 7. The point for consideration is whether there are any strong and convincing grounds to interfere with the acquittal of the accused by the trial Court. 8. The cause of death of Nalini due to administering a poisonous injection to herself, as stated by P.W.10, the Medical Officer, is not in controversy and it is the reason for such act by the deceased that is in question. P.W.9 the Investigating Officer, stated that on four or five earlier occasions also, Nalini was found making attempts to commit suicide and he did not elaborate as to what was the probable reasons for her to do so. The Investigating Officer also confirmed various omissions and contradictions in the evidence of other witnesses vis-à- vis, the statements recorded by him during investigation and these omissions and contradictions were relating to various specific overt acts said to have been committed by the accused as part of the process of his cruelty and sadism. P.W.9 admitted that except P.W.5, the other witnesses examined by him were not neighbours and that he did not examine any other inmates of the house where the dead body was found. P.W.8, the mediator for Ex.P.4 inquest report admitted Ex.C.1 suicide note being found by the side of the dead body and Ex.C.1 mentioned that no one was responsible for the suicidal death. While the prosecution evidence was positive that Ex.C.1 was in the own hand of Nalini, it is not the claim of either the result of the investigation or any witness that Ex.C.1 was not voluntary. The photos taken by P.W.7 had no additional information. 9. P.W.6, who knows Nalini and the accused since 1993, stated that they lived normal life without any disputes to his knowledge and that the accused consumed alcohol occasionally. It was the accused who informed him about the death of Nalini and P.W.6 finding the accused weeping by the side of the dead body does not appear to be artificial. P.W.6 clearly stated that the accused and his wife were affectionate towards each other and the accused was affectionate towards P.W.3, his daughter also. In fact, by the time of the death of Nalini, the accused was stated to be living separately in another house due to Ayyapadeeksha. He was speaking about the troubles at the work place of Nalini and he identified Ex.C.1 in the hand of Nalini. No positive reason or motive was attributed to P.W.6 to resort to falsehood to help the accused and his version further creates a doubt about the credibility of the accused being the cause for the suicide of Nalini. 10. The evidence of P.Ws.4 and 5 was, of course, positive about the condemnable behaviour of the accused towards his wife, which needs no detailed repetition herein. But either of them did not state about any particular offending event near in point of time to the suicide of Nalini which must have been the cause for ending her life. It is true that the daughter-P.W.3 also spoke about the conduct of the accused on the same lines, but her evidence itself disclosed that even a day before her death, Nalini clearly told her daughter that she will clear off the debts and go away and live separately. The conduct of the accused did not have such fatal influence on her thinking as to lead her to commit suicide is evident from the said statement of P.W.3, who further stated that there could not have been any cause for her mother to commit suicide. The evidence of P.W.3, of course, appears to suspect her mothers death to be homicidal, but that being not the case of either the prosecution or any other witness, such suspicion cannot lead to concluding the culpability of the accused for any such offence. 11. The mother of the deceased as P.W.2 stated that she came to know that the accused used to come home in a drunken state and cause problems to the family. Her evidence devoid of any further details is no proof of the intensity of misconduct of the accused. The brother-in-law of the deceased as P.W.1, of course, stated that Nalini informed him and his wife earlier about the harassment by the accused, but his version is that since two months prior to the death, Nalini was living separately from the accused. Hence, there appeared no immediate provocation from the conduct of the accused for Nalini’s death. It is only the opinion of P.W.1 that it might be due to the harassment by the accused. Such opinion cannot take the place of legal proof and though the various allegations of the prosecution and the witnesses raise serious doubts and suspicion about the conduct of the accused being a possible cause for the suicide of Nalini, suspicion could not have been concluded to prove beyond reasonable doubt such guilt. Analysis made by the trial Court about the requirements of Sections 107 and 306 IPC need no replication here and in the light of the suicide note-Ex.C.1 from Nalini that none-else were responsible for the death and that she was committing suicide being vexed with her own life, it may leave the question as to what was the real cause for the death of Nalini unanswered, but there appeared no strong grounds to interfere with the acquittal of the accused by the impugned judgment. 12. Hence, the Criminal Appeal has to fail. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed. ________________________ G.BHAVANI PRASAD, J DECEMBER 02, 2011 YVL HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL APPEAL No.1265 of 2008 02.12.2011 YVL