The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of the legal provisions regarding murder and causing grievous hurt under the Travancore Penal Code.

1. The first accused in Sessions Case No. 4 of 1950 in the court of session at Kottayam, is the appellant. The second accused, who was tried along with the first accused, was found to be not guilty and he has been acquitted. There is no appeal presented on behalf of the State in respect of that order. The charge against the first accused was that he committed murder by killing his wife. The learned sessions judge accepted the case for the prosecution, held that the first accused was guilty under S. 301 of the Travancore Penal Code and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life, subject to confirmation by the High Court. The records have been submitted to this court for confirmation, and the appeal preferred by the accused was also argued by his learned counsel.

2. The case disclosed by the evidence for the prosecution was that the dead body of the wife of the first accused was found hanging from a branch of a jack fruit tree in the compound adjacent to the house where the first accused and his wife resided. In that house was also residing a widow, whose husband was the maternal uncle of the deceased wife of the first accused. The case for the prosecution was that there was illicit intimacy between the first accused and this woman and that he was frequently ill-treating his wife as a consequence. There was a child born to the deceased woman, about four months prior to the date on which her dead body was discovered. The main evidence against the first accused was the confession made by him which was recorded by a competent Magistrate. This confession has been marked as Ext. W at the trial. In that confession, he had stated that on the night of 7.7.1124 he had caused injuries to a vital part of the body of his wife by means of piece of pointed stick, which has been marked as M.O.V. These injuries resulted in severe hacmorrhage and the victim collapsed. The first accused tried to retract this confession in the sessions court, but there is sufficient corroboration of the statements contained in the confession, especially in the evidence of P.W. 2, a neighbour.

3. When the accused feared that his wife had died as a result of the injuries inflicted by him, he went straight to his neighbour P.W. 2's house and called her son, the second accused, and whispered something in his ear, and later appealed to her son-in-law (P.W. 3) to come and help him to hang up the dead body on the branch of a tree in an adjacent compound in order that people may believe that it was a case of suicide and that he may not be suspected of murder. P.W. 2 in her evidence clearly states that the request made by the first accused to her son-in-law, P.W. 3, was distinctly heard by her. The first accused had said words to the effect that he had caused injuries to his wife and that he was afraid that she might die as a result of those injuries and that he wanted to dispel the suspicion that he was responsible for bringing about the death.

4. The first point that was attempted to be argued on behalf of the first accused appellant by his learned counsel, was that the retracted confession should not be acted upon. But there is material corroboration to be found in the evidence of P.W. 2 and we see no reason to ignore the confession altogether, since it is fully supported by the circumstantial evidence in this case. The paramour of the first accused, who was the deceased woman's maternal uncle's widow, was examined as P.W. 11 in the trial Court. She was also suspected to be implicated in this murder, and since she was prepared to make a clear breast of what had actually happened, she was treated as an approver and her evidence was recorded at the trial. There is nothing in her evidence to implicate her in the commission of the offence except the fact that she assisted the first accused in removing the body of his wife and hanging it upon a branch of jack fruit tree as already stated. She was only one of the people who assisted the first accused in