The main legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on motive, eyewitness testimony, and recovery of evidence to uphold the conviction under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC.

JUDGMENT :

1. In this appeal the accused have challenged their conviction and sentence for the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of IPC.

2. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to their rank before the Trial Court.

3. It is the case of the prosecution that accused are father and son and they were residing in the farm house situated within the jurisdiction of Indi police station. The granddaughter of brother of deceased Apparaya Lalaseri, by name Giremma @ Revamma was given in marriage to accused No. 2 about 10 months prior to the date of the incident. After the marriage, she started living with the accused persons in their house. It is alleged that intending to perform the second marriage of accused No. 2, accused No. 1 started harassing and making allegations against his daughter-in-law Giremma @ Revamma and sent her back to her parents' house. In this regard, about 3-4 times, panchayat was held by the deceased in the presence of CWs.8, 11, 12, 17 to 20 and the accused persons were advised not to ill-treat Giremma @ Revamma or if they are unable to treat her properly in their house, at least accused No. 2 should set up a separate residence for his wife and live with her, failing which, the deceased gave a threat that he is going to file a criminal complaint.

4. In this background, the accused persons mistook the advise given by deceased to set up a separate residence as though he is trying to break the family and on 08.01.2013 at about 8:45 a.m. while deceased along with complainant-Kasturibai was proceeding from Alur Maddi towards Alur Tanda by walk and when they were near the borewell, accused persons came on motorbike and after stopping their vehicle in front of the deceased, both accused persons assaulted the deceased with two koyta which are used for cutting the sugarcane and gave about 5-6 blows and thereafter, accused No. 2 severed the head of the deceased and threw the head towards the drain.

5. According to the prosecution the incident was witnessed by CW.6-Rudrappa, CW.7-Mahadevappa, CW.14-Dundappa Natikar, CW.15-Annaraya Maragur and CW.16-Basavaraj Walikar. After the incident, Smt.Kasturibai who was the kept mistress of the deceased and who was accompanying him at the time of incident and is an eyewitness informed the said fact to the wife of deceased i.e. CW.10/Smt.Bheemabai and after who and others came to the spot, she went to the police station i.e. complainant went to the police station and lodged the complaint.

6. Based on the complaint, the jurisdictional police registered the case in Crime No. 5/2013 for the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of IPC and transmitted FIR to the Court. The PSI who registered the case handed over the further investigation to the CPI. On telephonic message to him about the registration of the case, the CPI immediately visited the spot. The PSI who has registered the case was also present at the spot. After going through the records, the CPI conducted inquest panchanama over the dead body in the presence of panchas. He got shifted the dead body to the hospital for post mortem examination. He also conducted spot panchanama in the presence of panchas and collected blood stained soil, plain soil and recovered two choppers i.e. koyta which were left at the spot by the accused persons, a pair of chappal belonging to the deceased through the spot mahazar. He also drew the rough sketch of the scene of offence. Few photographs of the scene of the offence including that of the dead body i.e. torso and severed head were captured. The Investigating Officer has also recorded the statements of some of the witnesses namely, Bheemarayagouda, Rudrappa, Mahadevappa, Shantappa, Rajashri, Bheemabai, Giremma @ Revamma, Dundappa, Annaraya, Basavaraju, Bhimaraya Karale, Doddappa Patil, Malakappa, Hanumanth Mujagonda, Sankappa Biradar and Kallappa Karale at the spot itself. After the post mortem examination, he handed over the dead body to the r