JUDGMENT :

SyamKumar V.M., J.

This appeal is filed by the sole accused in S.C.No.440 of 2011 before the Additional Sessions Judge, Neyyattinkara, challenging the judgment dated 08.09.2016 which found him guilty under Section 302 IPC and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.50,000/-, with a default sentence of rigorous imprisonment of one year.

2. The prosecution case is that the accused had, on 21.08.2010, at 6.20 P.M., caused the death of a fellow fisherman Arogyadas, by fatally stabbing him on the right side of his neck. The provocation for the act was that on the fateful day, while Arogyadas was having a shave seated in the open along the seashore, the accused, who was sitting alongside mending fishing nets with other fisher folk, had purportedly on a lighter vein, ridiculed Arogyadas by calling him a local epithet “chakka poonji” which roughly translates as “loser”. Irked by this ignominy, Arogyadas, once his shave was done, approached the accused and questioned his impertinence. The accused, it is alleged, had at that point got up and stabbed Arogyadas on the right side of his neck using the steel knife with which he was mending the fishing ne