Judgment

SHELAT, J.:- This appeal is against the judgment of the High Court of Madras by which it confirmed the appellant s conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and the sentence of death awarded to him. It is founded on a certificate granted by the High Court under Article 134 (1) (c) of the Constitution.

2. At the material time the appellant, a widower for sometime, was living in village Valayamadevi near the house where the deceased Natesa Padayachi and his wife Meenakshi (P. W. 1) used to reside. In course of time the appellant and Meenakshi developed illicit intimacy. The deceased Natesa was serving as a driver in a rice Mill belonging to one Sundaralingam Pillai and his son Guhan Pillai (P. W,. 6). One afternoon the deceased returned home a little earlier than usual and found his wife and the appellant in a compromising position. A quarrel ensued between the deceased and the appellant when the deceased warned the appellant against his coming to his house. The appellant retorted that instead of quarrelling with him the deceased should control his wife. To prevent the appellant visiting his residence the appellant and his wife went to reside in a portion of a Chatram belonging to his master. Enraged by this change of residence by the deceased, the appellant demanded, through one Govindaraja (P. W. 2), that the deceased should return to him the presents given by him to his wife. He repeated this demand about two days prior to the date of the occurrence through Subbarayan (P. w. 5). On July 7, 1969, the appellant visited the house of the deceased, but P. W. 1 scolded him, whereupon the appellant told her that she was talking to him in that vein because of her husband, and that if he were to do away with her husband she would not be able to withstand him.

3. On July 10, 1969, Meenakshi went to another village to see the deceased s brother who was ailing. The appellant saw her and her children going. At about 9.30 that night he was in the tea shop of P. W. 3 when he enquired if the deceased had returned home from the rice Mill where he was working. Next morning P. W. 5 and P. W. 6 found Natesa lying dead with cut injuries on his neck and other parts of his body. Amongst the Articles lying near him, there was a towel which belonged, according to the prosecution, to the appellant. The evidence was that the towel had a mark of the washerman who used to wash the appellant s clothes. P. W. 6 lodged the first information report at about 7. 30 that morning very soon after he and P. W. 5 had discovered the ghastly tragedy.

4. There was no direct evidence to establish as to who was the assailant of Natesa. But the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence, namely, (1) that the appellant had a motive to do away with the deceased as the deceased had come in the way between him and P. W. 1. (2) that the appellant knew that P. W. 1 and her children had left the village that morning and the deceased would be alone in the house, (3) that the appellant had made enquiries that night to find out if the deceased had returned home from the rice Mill, (4) that the towel M. O. 6 belonging to him was found lying near the dead body of Natesa which was identified by the washerman as belonging to him, (5) that when the appellant surrendered at the Police station his clothes M. Os. 7 and 9 were found to have stains of human blood, (6) discovery by the appellant of the aruval M. O. 1, (7) injuries on the appellant, namely, an abrasion on his toe and multiple linear abrasions on his right arm and chest, and (8) his statement to the Doctor (P. W. 8), to whom the Police took the appellant after his arrest, to the effect that it was the deceased Natesa who at about midnight on July 10, 1969 had caused the injury on his toe by biting him.

5. Both Sessions Court and the High Court accepted the evidence as to these circumstances and found that, that evidence clearly pointed out the appellant as the person who had caused Natesa s death, and on th