JUDGMENT

(Per Hon’ble Sri Justice A.V.Sesha Sai)

Sole-accused in Sessions Case No.102 of 2010 on the file of the Court of the XI Additional District and Sessions Judge (Fast Track Court), Kakinada, East Godavari District, is the appellant in the present Criminal Appeal, preferred under sub- section (2) of Section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to, as ‘Cr.P.C.’). In the present Criminal Appeal, appellant herein assails the judgment dated 29.12.2011, rendered by the learned Sessions Judge in the said Sessions Case. By way of the impugned judgment, the learned Sessions Judge convicted the accused-appellant herein for the offences alleged under Sections 302 and 392 I.P.C. and sentenced him with life imprisonment for the offence under Section 302 I.P.C. and with rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten years for the offence under Section 392 I.P.C.

2. The case of the prosecution, in nutshell, is as follows:

The deceased was a native of Kulla village and his family owned Acs.5.00 cents of land in the said village and out of the said extent of land, the deceased and his brothers owned Acs.2.30 cents of land. The deceased migrated to Kakinada and along with his family, he was residing in Island colony, Turangi, Kakinada Rural Mandal. The deceased was an agent of Agri Gold Agencies and he was looking after the management of the above said Acs.5.00 cents of land. The accused and his paternal uncle one Mr. Deyyala Ramanjaneyulu (P.W.7), were cultivating the above said land of Acs.5.00 cents on lease basis. The deceased and his paternal uncle had the intention to sell Acs.2.30 cents of land and when they informed the same to the accused and his paternal uncle (P.W.7), they arranged the purchasers and one Smt. Namala Anantha Lakshmi of Rajahmundry, who was examined as P.W.11, agreed to purchase the land. In furtherance of the said transaction, the purchaser paid a sum of Rs.10,000/- to the deceased towards advance and the deceased requested the purchaser to pay an amount of Rs.2,00,000/- as an advance and on 16.06.2008, at about 2-00 p.m., P.W.7 and P.W.8 went to the house of Anantha Lakshmi (P.W.11) at Rajahmundry and P.W.11 had given Rs.2,00,000/- to hand over the same to the deceased and P.W.8 kept the said cash bundles in polythene cover and later they brought the amount to Kulla village in between 5-00 and 6-00 p.m. on the same day and by the time the deceased came to the village from Kakinada and was waiting to collect the amount and Bodapati Surya Chandra Rao (L.W.8) handed over the said amount to the deceased and the deceased counted the cash and kept it in a small rexine bag. From there, the deceased went to his old tiled house along with the accused and both of them spent some time and thereafter, both of them left Kulla village on their respective motorcycles separately.

The accused came to Gangavaram village and parked his motorcycle in the premises of K.Venkata Rao, APSRTC Complex and he brought one hammer and kept it at his waist secretly and asked the deceased to take him to Kakinada and then, the accused boarded the motorcycle of the deceased at about 8-00 p.m. The father-in-law of the deceased telephoned to him and enquired his whereabouts and the deceased informed him that he was in Gorripudi and he was returned to his house about half an hour and at about 8-10 p.m., Palepu Rambabu (P.W.12) also telephoned to the deceased and came to know that the accused was present along with him and contacted the accused and the accused informed that both of them were at Kulla village. During the night of the same day, on the way to Kakinada, when the deceased and the accused reached the fields of one Mr. Atla Venkanna, the accused asked the deceased to stop the motorcycle and accordingly the deceased stopped the motorcycle and the accused attacked him with hammer and killed him by strangulation with the belt of the bag and escaped from the scene of offence with an amount of Rs.2,00,000/-. With the above