Ganapathi vs The State Of Tamil Nadu

2. Briefly stated the prosecution case is that Muthulakshmi (Accused No. 4 — appellant herein) had love affair with one Murugan, son of PW1—Armugam. When the said Murugan refused to marry her, a complaint was lodged in the Kovilpatty police station and with the intervention of villagers and police, their marriage was solemnized on 5-2-1999. Ever since their marriage had taken place, there were frequent quarrels and rifts between both the families leading to strained relations between the couple. Petchimuthu, the father of A-4 had even lodged a complaint against his son-in-law—Murugan, his father (PW1) and sister (Poomari) as she was held to be the root cause for all disturbances between the 3 couple. Police had called the couple and advised them to live together peacefully, but after some days, Muthulakshmi (A4) came out of her matrimonial home and returned to her parental home.

3. On 4.8.1999, Ponnu (A1), Ganapathi (A2) and Chitravelu (A3) carrying deadly weapons, spotted Murugan near a street hotel and attacked him. While Ponnu (A1) instigated the other two accused to hack Murugan, Ganapathi (A2) stabbed Murugan with a knife on the chest and Chitravelu (A3) had inflicted cut injuries with a sickle on Murugan leading to his instantaneous death on the spot. The assailants then fled away from the scene of offence. Father of the deceased—PW1 (Armugam) and PW2 (Poomurugan— another Son of Armugam) who were standing nearby had witnessed the occurrence.

4. While that being so, on the same day when Poomari (daughter of Armugam—PW1) along with her daughter Sakunthala (PW3) went to a nearby well for washing clothes and taking bath, the four accused, appeared there and attacked Poomari in front of her daughter. Chitravelu (A3) inflicted cut injuries on Poomari with 4 a sickle and Ganapathi (A2) stabbed thrice with knife in her stomach causing her intestine to come out of her stomach. After that Chitravelu (A3) gave the sickle to Muthulakshmi (A4) and instigated her to attack Poomari. Muthulakshmi then inflicted cut injuries on the head, hand and face near nose of Poomari with the sickle, and Poomari had died on the spot. PW3 (Sakunthala), daughter of Poomari, a ten year old school going child, who was present at the scene, had witnessed the crime.

5. On the complaint of PW1 (Ext.P1), Ottapidaram Police Station registered the Crime Case No. 72/99 against the accused under Section 302, IPC and conducted investigation. The Investigating Officer visited the spots, conducted inquest (Ext.P31), prepared observation mahazars (Ext. P2, P3) and sketches of scenes of death (Ext.P27,P29), recovered bloodstained earth and normal earth, severed hair locks, mangalsuthra and other incriminating articles from the scene of offence in presence of witnesses and obtained their signatures. Other formalities such as recording of statements of witnesses and sending the bodies of the deceased for postmortem were followed. The accused were arrested on 5.8.1999 5 at 5.30 am on Velayuthapuram Junction at Ottapidaram Cross Roads and the police seized weapons from them that were used in the crime and sent the same for chemical examination. The case was then committed to the Court of Sessions and their statements recorded under Section 313, Cr.P.C. the accused pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

6. In order to bring home the guilt of the accused, prosecution has relied on as many as 21 witnesses and marked Exts. P.1 to P.31 and there were 27 material objects. On the defence side, a school headmaster was examined as witness and marked Ext. D1. The trial Court, after undertaking a full fledged trial, found the accused guilty and convicted accused Ponnu (A1) under Section 302/34, IPC sentenced to undergo life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs.500/-, in default, to further suffer six months imprisonment. Ganapathi (A2) and Chitravelu (A3) were awarded life imprisonment under Section 302, IPC (two counts) with a fine of Rs.1,000/-, in default, to suffer six months imprisonment further. However, their sentenced on each count were directed to run concurrently. Muthulakshmi (A4) was sentenced to 6 undergo life imprisonment under Section 302, IPC with a fine of Rs.500/-, and in default, to suffer further imprisonment of six months.

7. The aggrieved accused approached the High Court by way of appeal. By the judgment impugned herein, the High Court set aside the conviction and sentence against Accused No. 1 and affirmed the conviction and sentence awarded by the trial Court against Accused Nos. 2 to 4. Being dissatisfied with the judgments of the Courts below, appellants are before us. As the State has not preferred any appeal against acquittal of A1, we are only concerned with the appeals arising out of conviction.

18. Giving our consideration to the circumstances in totality, we cannot find fault with the view taken by the High Court in convicting the accused whose guilt has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. For all the foregoing reasons, we are of the considered opinion that there is no error in appreciation of evidence or any error of law in the judgment passed by the High Court. Therefore, we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment. The appeals are, therefore, dismissed.