Raja Gounder & Anr vs State Of Tamil Nadu

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 632 OF 2005

RAJA GOUNDER & ANR. .. APPELLANT(S)

vs.

STATE OF TAMIL NADU .. RESPONDENT(S)

O R D E R

We have heard learned counsel for the parties in

extenso.

We find that two Courts have found against the

appellants more particularly that PW.1 the first informant,

the wife of the deceased, is also the sister-in-law of the

appellants as the deceased and the appellants were

brothers. It has also come in evidence that the relations between the parties were strained on account of a land

dispute and this was the motive for the murder.

It has been contended by Mrs. K. Sarada Devi, the

learned counsel for the appellants, that there were several

suspicious circumstances in the prosecution evidence in as

much that the FIR had been lodged after 13 hours and there

was no explanation forthcoming to explain the delay and

this delay has been utilized by the prosecution to evolve

a false story and that PW.2 the sister of the deceased and

the appellants who had been cited as witness had not been

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produced as a witness. In addition, it has been argued that in the FIR, PW.1 had referred to two injuries caused

to the deceased but eight injuries had been detected during

the post-mortem.

We find that all these issues have been examined by

the Courts below and it has been found that the delay in

the lodging the FIR had been explained as the incident had

happened at 10.00 p.m. at a little distance from the house

of the deceased, and PW.1, a young woman, would have been

in a great distress and had first sent information to her

parents in their village some distance away and had

thereafter left for the police station to lodge the

report. We find that the conduct of PW.1 was perfectly

compatible with the behaviour of a young widow who had seen

a brutal attack on her husband. It is true that no

independent witness has been examined but in the background

that a dispute existed within the family, independent witnesses would not ordinarily be available. We thus have

absolutely no reason to doubt the evidence of PW.1 as she

would be the last person to involve the appellants in a

false case leaving out the real assailants. We are not

surprised that the mother of the deceased and the

appellants who had been cited as a PW but had instead

appeared in Court as a defence witness, as this is a

common tendency in fratricides, and particularly where

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parents are involved as witnesses in as much that after

tempers cool and there is time for reflection they find that while one child has been murdered and the other faces

the prospect of serving a long sentence on their evidence

which will, without a doubt, be believed, invariably makes

their resile from their police statements. We also find no

discrepancy vis.-a-vis. the ocular and medical evidence. We

notice that the incident happened in the dead night and it

would not have been possible for the PW.1 to see all the

blows striking the deceased and to identify every blow

given by the appellants in the darkness, would have smacked

of tutoring of the witness. Two courts have found against

the appellants on a minute appreciation of the evidence on

this aspect as well. We are thus not inclined to interfere

in this appeal.

Dismissed.

.................J. (HARJIT SINGH BEDI)

....................J. (R.M. LODHA) New Delhi, September 28, 2010.