The judgment emphasizes the need for conclusive evidence in criminal cases, the admissibility of confessional statements, and the application of the benefit of doubt in favor of the accused.

Mockett, J.

1. The three accused have been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of one Akkammal, the wife of accused 1. The charge alleges that Akkammal died of suffocation. Her body was founds in the village well on the morning of 17th March at about 9 A.M. The medical evidence was to the effect that she had died of suffocation and not of drowning. For the present we will discuss the evidence on the basis-that Akkammal was in fact murdered although it will be necessary to return to an investigation of the medical evidence at a later stage. The plan Ex. W, indicates that accused 1 lived with his wife at Gangapurampalle in a kottam which is next to the main house in which his parents, P.W. 3, her husband, and her children lived. There is no doubt that accused 1 and his wife were not happy. Accused 1 had married a second wife and had been ordered by a Magistrate to pay Akkammal Rs. 10 a month for maintenance. Ex. J is the revision petition filed against that order, which was dismissed by King J. There is evidence by P.W. 1 the uncle, that accused 1 illtreated his wife. The case for the prosecution is that accused 1 hired accused 2 and 3, to murder his wife and that they all three together achieved this purpose. The evidence against accused 1 is of a different character from the evidence against accused 2 and 3. The evidence against accused 1 consists largely on his conduct on the night of Akkammals death and after, and the case against accused 2 (and in a measure against accused 3) rests almost wholly on a confessional statement made by accused 2, Ex. E. The principal witness against accused lis P.W. 3. She is accused ls sister. Her story is that at midnight on 16th March 1939 she was woken by a cry, she came out of the house and saw accused 1 outside the kottam. She said to him, "What Ramanna, I heard a noise here," to which accused 1 replied, "There is nothing. You had better go and lie down." She does not appear however to have been easy in her mind because she woke her mother P.W. 4 and sent her to fetch P.W. 5 her husband. He came and then, in her evidence, she says:

I told him that I did not know exactly what had happened but I had heard a cry in my sleep.

2. In the statement taken from her under Section 164, Criminal P.C., she said much the same. This statement was taken on 20th March 1939. But the next part of her narrative is important, namely, that she, P.W. 5 and P.W. 6 went to the kottam to see what had happened, and that neither accused 1 nor Akkammal was there, but the beds were still spread out. Witnesses were called to corroborate P.W. 3s story. We must observe that P.W. 1 and P.W. 2 were called before P.W. 3 and it is difficult to understand how, until P.W. 3 had been called it was possible for evidence to be admitted of what she had said in the absence of accused 1. However, this was done and P.W. 1 stated that on 17th he questioned P.W. 3 who described her conversation with accused 1 in very different language. According to P.W. 1, P.W. 3 stated that about midnight she heard Akkammal cry out, "Chinnamma, I am dead," and on going to make enquiries accused 1 said, "Do you want to send me to jail now? Go and lie down." P.W. 2, the mother of Akkammal, also states that what P.W. 3 told her was that Akkammal cried out, "Chinnamma, I am dead," but P.W. 2 also states that P.W. 3 had told her that the deceased had fallen into a well and died on the 16th night. The above part of the evidence of P.W. 1 and P.W. 2 was inadmissible at the stage it was given, and in any case if that inadmissibility can be cured, it does not confirm P.W. 3s statement but on the other hand shows that a variety of statements is said to have been made by her. But P.W. 3 was examined at the inquest early on the morning of the 17th and there she said nothing about having been woken in the night by a cry. On the other hand Ex. XV shows that early next morning she got up and called to Akkamma to pound sajja, that none replied and so