The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for substantial and reliable evidence to sustain a conviction, highlighting the importance of consistency and reliability in the prosecution's case.

Burn, J.

1. The appellant has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Kurnool of abducting a woman with intent that she might be murdered (Section 364, Penal Code) and also of murdering the same woman (Section 302). He has sentenced the appellant to death for the offence of murder and to transportation for life for abduction. The woman, whom the appellant is said to have abducted and murdered was a Kapa Gouramma, a widow who lived in Rajoli in the Nizams Dominions and also had a house in Kurnool. She had two daughters (P.Ws. 4 and 5) who-were apparently living by prostitution, though P.W. 5 at the time of the murders of Gouramma was said to be in poor state of health. The appellant was on terms of illicit intimacy with the younger daughter, P.W. 4. It is alleged that he was supposed to be paying her Rs. 6, a month but that his payments were irregular and P.W. 4s mother objected to her association with the appellant on account of his meanness. It was alleged that he had once given her a pair of kammals and that on a pretext of being in want of money he had taken them back from her and pledged them. The mother therefore according to the prosecution was trying to break off the association between P.W. 4 and the appellant, and this is supposed to have been the appellants principal motive for the murder. The learned Sessions-Judge thinks that he had another motive in that he was badly in need of money and that Gouramma had some cash and also some jewels.

2. Gourammas corpse was found on the front verandah of her house in Kurnool on the morning of 20th February. Her throat: had been cut and her ear lobes also had been cut. There is no reasonable doubt about the fact that she was murdered by somebody who wanted to steal her jewels and whatever else she had. The doctor who made the post mortem examination of Gourammas body on the afternoon of 20th February was not able to fix the time of death. He said that in his opinion death would have occurred between 20 and 40 hours before he made the post mortem examination which was at 5-10 P.M., on 20th February. According to his opinion Gouramma must have died some time between 1 A.M. and 9 P.M. on 19th February. The doctors evidence does not fix the time-nearer than that.

3. The evidence against the accused went to show that on the afternoon of 18th February he took Gouramma with him by bus from Rajoli to Kurnool. There was evidence to-show that Gouramma came to her house at Kurnool on the evening of that day about evening meal time, and that the appellant came to her house about an hour later. There was also evidence that the appellant was heard talking to the deceased in her house at about 10 P.M. on 18th February. One witness (P.W. 11) says that they were talking angrily and quarrelling. Nobody appears to have seen the appellant leave the house of the deceased and according to the prosecution he was next seen on the morning of the 19th plying his trade as a tailor in the main bazaar. The appellant was arrested on the evening of 21st February in his own house in Kurnool. The only other evidence of any importance is that on the Cuddappah slabs with which the verandah of the deceaseds house is floored foot prints in blood were found near the corpse. A foot print expert (P.W. 6) took impressions of the appellants feet in goats blood on Cuddapah slabs of a somewhat similar degree of smoothness. He said that he was satisfied that the foot prints found on the Cuddapah slabs near the corpse were the foot prints of the appellant. This is briefly the substance of the evidence for the prosecution. All the assessors expressed the opinion that the appellant had not been proved to be guilty either of abduction or of murder. The learned Sessions Judge disagreeing with them has convicted him for both the offences.

4. So far as abduction is concerned, there is no evidence upon which the appellant could be convicted. A person is said to abduct another person if he "by force compels or by any de