Chandra Reddi, J.-The appellant was charged with the murders of one Kaki Yellayya and his wife Kaki Akkamma on the 29th day of May, 1950, was found guilty of those offences and sentenced to death by the Sessions Judge of East Godavari division. The case put forward on behalf of the prosecution is briefly as follows:

Kaki Yellayya was one of the watchmen in the timber depot of one Kakirala Ramalingayya at Rajahmundry. He was living along with his wife Akkamma in a house in the yard of that timber depot. That house consisted of two rooms one of which was occupied by Yellayya and his wife Akkamma while the other room was occupied by the appellant and his parents. During his stay in the house, the appellant contracted illicit intimacy with Akkamma. Sometime before the occurrence the appellant’s mother and Akkamma had a quarrel because of the latter’s illicit relationship with the appellant and the parents of the appellant left the house and shifted to a place called Aryapuram. Thereafter the appellant who continued to stay in this house was supplied food by Akkamma. A little later he also left the place to join his parents. Nevertheless he used to visit Akkamma till the date of the occurrence.

On the 29th May, 1950, at about 7-30 p.m., while Akkamma was cleaning the vessels after finishing her meal the appellant went there and stabbed her with a knife on receiving which she fell down. Thereupon her husband Yellayya who intervened was also stabbed himself and fell down at the same spot. Yellayya and Akkamma died almost instantaneously. The only person besides Yellayya and Akkamma who was in that room was Pydireddi, the son of the deceased, aged about 12 years. As soon as he saw his parents being stabbed, he cried out. This attracted P.W.12, another watchman living in the same compound 50 yards away, to Yellayya’s house. Learning from the boy, Pydireddi, that the appellant had stabbed both Yellayya and Akkamma, P.W.12, took the boy to P.W.13, another employee in the timber depot. There the boy told P.W.13 also the same thing. Then both P.W.12 and P.W.13 took the boy to the town police station, Rajahmundry, where the boy narrated the whole incident to the Sub-Inspector. P.W. 13 wrote down a report of what Pydireddi told him in Ex. P-13 and gave it to the Sub-Inspector. The Sub-Inspector of Police P.W.14 who received express reports at about 11-30 p.m., immediately proceeded to the spot and found both Yellayya and Akkamma dead and the appellant lying wounded by their side. The appellant was arrested and sent to the hospital for treatment. It may be mentioned that while he was undergoing treatment, the appellant ran away from the hospital without the knowledge of the hospital authorities. The doctors who conducted the post mortem examination on the dead bodies of Yellayya and Akkamma were of opinion that both of them died of shock and haemorrhage as a result of the multiple injuries caused to them. The appellant who was examined in the hospital by P.W.6 on 30th May, 1950, was found to have sustained five injuries on his person of which injury No.1 was a grievous one. After further investigation the appellant was charge-sheeted for the offences of murders under section 302, Indian Penal Code.

The plea of the appellant was this. As usual he visited Akkamma with whom he was on terms of criminal intimacy, that night. Yellayya who was away from the house at that time suddenly appeared on the scene and seeing the appellant and Akkamma together, he first pierced the appellant with a sword, then he caught hold of his wife and stabbed her with the same weapon on several vital parts of the body. Thereafter the appellant lost consciousness and did not know what happened subsequently.

Rejecting this theory and accepting the prosecution case in toto the learned Sessions Judge found the appellant guilty of the offences of murder and sentenced him to death.

The prosecution case rests mainly on the evidence of the boy, Pydireddi, who was the only inmate of

Click Here to Read the rest of this document