The judge's discretion to refuse an adjournment and the admissibility of evidence under Section 33 of the Evidence Act were central legal points established in the judgment.

Happell, J.

1. The appellant has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of South Kanara for the murder of a certain Poovu Hengsu on the 17th of July last, and has been sentenced to death.

2. Poovu Hengsu was the elder sister of the accuseds mother, and so his aunt. She was undoubtedly murdered in the middle of the day on the verandah of her house. The medical evidence is that she had been strangled to death and had received other injuries--a contusion on the left side of the chin and a contusion covering the whole of the left cheek, under which the left superior maxilla and the lower jaw were fractured. Poovu Hengsu had been in the habit of going to Bombay to visit relatives and five or six years ago she had gone there for two years, leaving the accuseds mother in charge of her house in Haleyangadi. During her absence the accuseds mother failed to pay the rent to the landlord, and on her return she removed the accused and his mother from the house. After this episode they were on bad terms, and on the occasion of a marriage in Poovu Hengsus house a few months before her death the accused and his mother were not invited. There is no reason to distrust the evidence on these points, but it cannot be regarded as evidence which proves as motive. If however, it was the accused who killed Poovu Hengsu, his attack on her is not entirely unexplained.

3. The evidence from which the learned Sessions Judge has drawn the inference that it was the accused who murdered the deceased woman is that of three witnesses who gave evidence as P. Ws. 2, 3 and 4. P.W. 2 is a fisherwoman by caste and calling and she lives in a house about forty yards from the house in which the deceased was residing. Her evidence is that sometime before noon on the 17th of July Poovu Hengsu had come to her house to get some feeding stuff for her buffalo. Soon afterwards, a little after noon, the witness herself set out to go to a tank beyond Poovus house by way of Poovus yard. Before she got to the yard she heard what she calls " a sound of beating from her chavadi," and through the open door in the fence she saw "someone like a man" and cried out " thief, thief." Her cries brought P.W. 3 and his sister, Dugge, and the witness, P.W. 4 to the spot. The houses of P. Ws. 3 and 4 are respectively about forty and seventy yards distance from the house of the deceased. P.W. 3 and his sister first reached P.W. 2, and all three then went up to the railings of the deceaseds chavadi, and looked in. They saw Poovu Hengsu lying motionless on the ground and the accused standing beside her. P.W. 4 came up a little later and saw what the other witnesses had seen. None of the witnesses spoke to the accused. P.W. 2 withdrew to her house and P.W. 4 and Dugge to P.W. 3s house. P.W. 3 went for the Village Munsiff who lived not far away but found that he was out. He returned and immediately after his return all the witnesses saw the accused leave the deceaseds chavadi. P.W. 3 ultimately found the Village Munsiff at the Panchayat Court at 3 p. M. and made the statement--Ex. C--to him. The Police arrived that evening and the accused was arrested on the 19th of July. When arrested he was wearing a shirt which was proved to be stained with human blood.

4. P.W. 3s statement to the Village Munsiff is less detailed than the evidence. He stated merely that hearing cries of "thief, thief" he ran up and that "just then Pakira (the accused). ,. came out from inside the house of the said Poovu Hengsu and went away. The said Poovu Hengsu is fallen on the ground." The witnesses, however, are disinterested witnesses, and they gave their stories to the police early the next day. There is no reason to doubt that they did see the accused standing by the body of the deceased. The learned Sessions Judge was of opinion that the only inference which could be drawn from the evidence of P. Ws. 2 to 4 was that the accused was responsible for her death. He has not, it should be mentioned, taken into accoun