Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Madanayya vs The State Of Maharashtra on 9 June, 2017
Bench: Ashok Bhushan, Deepak Gupta
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1675 OF 2010
Madanayya .. Appellant(s)
Versus
State of Maharashtra .. Respondent(s)
O R D E R
This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 15th February, 2008 of the High Court of Bombay, Nagpur Bench in Crl.A.No.146/2003 whereby it upheld the judgment dated 17th January, 2003 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Gadchiroli convicting the appellant under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code and sentencing him to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay fine of Rs.200/- and in default of payment of fine to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for one month.
The undisputed facts are that the accused was married to Gatakka (PW.3). He was living in the house of his in laws. Gatakka had one sister Poshakka who was Signature Not Verified married. Her husband died and thereafter she started Digitally signed by HEMALATHA MOHAN Date: 2017.06.09 18:26:12 IST living in her parental house and was treated as the wife Reason: of the accused. Poshakka delivered two children from her relationship with the accused but both the children 2 died soon after their birth.
The case of the prosecution is that because the children born from Poshakka did not survive the accused used to beat her regularly. On the night intervening 23.08.2001 and 24.08.2001, the accused gave fist and kick blows to Poshakka. The accused and Poshakka were sleeping in one room and Gatakka along with her mother and children were sleeping in another room. In the morning Poshakka came out of the room and narrated the entire incident of merciless beating by the accused. She had severe pain in her abdomen. She died the same day i.e. 24.08.2001. In fact the first report regarding her death was lodged by the accused himself in which he stated that his wife had gone to answer the call of nature and after she came back, she was foaming from mouth and died soon thereafter. The police investigated the matter and the accused was charged for having murdered Poshakka who was living as his wife. He has been convicted and sentenced by both the courts and hence this appeal.
The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant submits that as per the medical evidence the death of Poshakka occurred in the morning of 25.08.2001 and Poshakka died due to strangulation. He, therefore, submits that the entire prosecution case is false. 3
We have carefully gone through the judgment of the High Court as well as the record of the case. The story of the prosecution is fully supported by PW-3 Gatakka the wife of the accused. There is no reason why she should falsely implicate her husband in the death of her sister. She states that while she was sleeping in the adjoining room, the accused along with Poshakka was sleeping in another room which was locked from inside. Throughout the night the accused was beating Poshakka and in the morning Poshakka told Gatakka (PW-3) that the accused had beaten her. Both the courts below have relied upon the statement of PW-3 and we see no reason to disbelieve her statement. Therefore, we are of the view that Poshakka died due to injuries caused on her person by the appellant-accused.
The next point raised by the learned counsel is that even if the prosecution story is believed, no case under Section 302 Indian Penal Code is made out.
We have gone through the postmortem report and there is no doubt that there were number of injuries on the body of the deceased. None of the injuries by itself was sufficient for causing death. The cumulative effect of the injuries is that the deceased died. The issue that arises is whether the accused had the intention of 4 causing death of the deceased. We cannot ignore the fact that the deceased woke up in the morning and narrated the incident to her sister PW-3, and she survived till 5.00 p.m. in the evening. The postmortem report also shows that she died within a couple of hours after partaking a heavy meal. In this view of the matter, it is difficult to impute the intention to kill to the appellant. Therefore, we convert the conviction of the accused from one under Section 302 to Section 304 Part-II. As the appellant has been behind bars for sixteen years, in our view, this is sufficient punishment for his crime and therefore, we reduce the sentence after altering the sentence as aforesaid to the period of incarceration already undergone by the appellant-accused. He shall be released forthwith unless wanted in any other case.
The appeal stands partly allowed accordingly.
....................J. [ASHOK BHUSHAN] ...................J. [DEEPAK GUPTA] NEW DELHI, JUNE 09, 2017.
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ITEM NO.109 COURT NO.4 SECTION IIA
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1675/2010
Madanayya Appellant(s)
VERSUS
State of Maharashtra Respondent(s)
(For permission to file Annexures on IA.20171/2012, for on IA.78248/2012) Date : 09/06/2017 This matter was called on for hearing today. CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ASHOK BHUSHAN HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DEEPAK GUPTA (VACATION BENCH) For Petitioner(s) Mr.Ashok Kumar Sharma, Adv. For Respondent(s) Mr. Nishant R. Kataneshwarkar, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R The appeal is allowed in terms of the signed order.
(USHA BHARDWAJ) (MADHU NARULA)
AR-CUM-PS COURT MASTER
Signed order is placed on the file.