Important Point
Where the entire family of the victim (except one son who was away) was wiped out in a brutal manner, obviously to grab his properties and there was no mitigating circumstances in favour of the accused, the case falls within the ‘rarest of the rare’ category and it would be a just, proper and fit case for awarding the capital punishment of death to the accused.

Judgment

M.K. Mukherjee, J.-This appeal under Section 379 Cr.P.C. is directed against the judgment and order dated September 2, 1997 rendered by the Madras High Court in Criminal Appeal No. 30 of 1988. By the impugned judgment the High Court reversed the acquittal of the appellant of five charges of murder, convicted him thereof and sentenced him to death. The victims were Nagamalai (elder brother of the appellant’s father), his wife, two sons and a daughter.

2. The prosecution case briefly stated is as follows:-

(i) On May 30, 1984 at or about 7.00 A.M. Sowndaram (P.W. 2), a resident of village Kondayapala­yam, in which Nagamalai and appellant also lived, went to the house of the former to fetch milk as it was her daily wont. Reach­ing there she found him, his wife, two sons and a daughter lying dead in the front yard of their house with bleeding injuries on their persons. She rushed back to her house and told her husband Kurukkal (P.W. 3) about the macabre murders. P.W. 3 then went to the house of Nagamalai and, having seen the dead bodies, apprised his co-villager Ramaswamy (P.W. 1) of the incident. After a visit to the house of Nagamalai, P.W. 1 went to the nearby village Varapalayam and gave a report to Ramani Marimuthu (P.W. 7), their Village Administrative Officer, which was recorded by him. In that report he first described what he had seen in the house of Nagamalai and then stated that he suspected that Govindaswami (the appellant) and his younger brother had committed that murders as there was a land dispute between them and Nagamalai.

(ii) P.W. 7 then left for village Kondayampalayam and after seeing the dead bodies went to Puliampatti Police Station and submit­ted the report (Ex. P.1). On that report a case was registered and investigation taken up by Palanisamy (P.W. 26), the then Circle Inspec­tor of Police. He went to the house of Nagamalai held inquest upon the five dead bodies and sent them to the Government hospital, Sathyaman­galam for post-mortem examination. He seized some articles from the scene of crime, including a wrist watch with its broken chain (M.O. 1).

(iii) On June 4, 1984 the investigation of the case was taken over by Shri Beeman (P.W. 27), an Inspector of Police. On that day he arrested the appellant and seized a blood stained lungi (M.O. 91) and a promissory note (M.O. 20) from his person under a memo (P. Ex. 8). Pursuant to a statement made by the appellant he then went to the house of Marimuthu (P.W. 14), an astrologer by profession, in village Arasur and seized a cycle (M.O. 21) and a gunny bag (M.O. 23) contain­ing a torch light (M.O. 18) and an aruval, (M.O. 22), a heavy sharp cutting instrument. The aruval, lungi and some other articles seized from the scene of crime were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (F.S.L.) for chemical examination. After receipt of report of such examination and on completion of investigation police submitted charge-sheet against the appellant.

3. The appellant pleaded not guilty to the charges and contended that he was falsely implicated.

4. That Nagamalai, his wife, two sons and a daughter met with homici­dal death in front of their house stands proved by overwhelming evi­dence on record. Indeed, this part of the prosecution case was not challenged by the defence. Apart from the uncontroverted evidence of P.Ws. 1, 2, 3 and 7, all of whom claimed to have seen the dead bodies of the 5 persons lying with bleeding injuries in front of their house, the evidence of P.W. 27, who held inquest upon the dead bodies, proves that fact. From the evidence of the three doctors, namely, Dr. Ulaga­nathan (P.W. 16), Dr. Saroja (P.W. 17) and Dr. Marimuthu (P.W. 18), who held post-mortem examination upon one or the other of those dead bodies, we get that each of them had a number of deep cut injuries all over their bodies. While Nagamalai had 6 such injuries, his sons, Moorthy and Balasubramanian, had 12 and 4 respectively