The magistrate has the duty to weigh the evidence and commit the accused if a conviction is possible, and unexplained possession of a jewel of a murdered person can be evidence under Section 114 of the Indian Evidence Act.

This is a petition for setting aside the order of the District Magistrate, Anantapur, setting aside the discharge of the petitioner, who was the first accused in P.R.C. No. 6 of 1948, on the file of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate’s Court, Anantapur, under section 209, Criminal Procedure Code and directing the petitioner to be committed to the Court of Session, Anantapur, under section 437 of the Criminal Procedure Code, to stand his trial for offences under sections 302 and 380, Indian Penal Code, or in the alternative, for an offence under section 201, Indian Penal Code.

The prosecution case was briefly this Komathi Thimmakka, a lonely Vysya widow of sixty years, was eking out her livelihood by running a petty shop in Atmakur village, Anantapur district. She was wearing a gold nanu (necklace) worth Rs. 250 for years and had it on her even on the night of 27th February, 1948, according to P.Ws.3 and 9, her brother and his wife. That night, after she had closed her shop and gone to bed, five persons, who were all accused before the Stationary Sub-Magistrate, including this petitioner who was the first accused, were said to have gone to her house (which was near her shop) drunk, woke her up and asked her to sell some eatables, beedies and condiments to them on credit. On her refusing to do so, and on insisting upon cash payment, they are said to have fallen upon her and slapped her cheek and pressed her neck and dragged her from her house to a well in a tope, some hundred yards away, and pushed her into it after robbing her of her gold nanu. P.W.2 found the deceased’s corpse in the well the next morning. There was no nanu on her corpse. The petitioner gave a statement before the Magistrate stating that he had seen four others go to the deceased’s house that night and ask her for the things on credit and, on her refusal, slap her on the cheek, press her throat and neck, rob her of her nanu, and drag her to the well and push her into it. He claimed to be a mere spectator of all these things and did not implicate himself in them. But he said that the nanu was given by the culprits to him, and produced it before the police in the presence of panchayatdars. P.Ws.3 and 9 identified the nanu from among four nanus as the deceased’s before the police. In Court, P.W.9 identified the nanu as the deceased’s but P.W.3 said simply that it was similar to the deceased’s.

The evidence regarding this petitioner consisted of three things. Firstly, there was his statement before a Magistrate, with the production of the nanu by him. There was also evidence that his dhoti had blood-stains on it. A third piece of evidence consisted in some of the prosecution witnesses, namely, P.Ws.5 and 6, seeing him and the men he had named as the culprits near the house of the deceased on the night of 27th February, 1948, and the evidence of P.W.8 to her having seen some of the culprits named by him near the well that night. There were also injuries on the cheek and neck of the corpse corresponding to the blows on the deceased spoken to by the petitioner in his statement, and there were some injuries on the petitioner’s body also.

The Stationary Sub-Magistrate, Anantapur, discharged all the five accused holding that the statement of the petitioner before the Magistrate was a self exculpatory statement and so could not affect the other accused, or be taken into consideration regarding them, and that, even as regards the petitioner, he was not satisfied with the truth of that statement. No attempt was made by the police to file a revision regarding the discharge of accused 2 to 5 in spite of a statement given by accused 5 also to a Magistrate, as the evidence against them was such that no Sessions Court could be expected to convict them on that evidence. But the police filed a revision before the District Magistrate as regards this petitioner. The learned District Magistrate rightly remarked that, whatever the case might be with regard to the other four accused, the