IMPORTANT POINT
The court affirmed the conviction for murder, emphasizing the consistency of eyewitness testimonies and the sufficiency of evidence despite minor discrepancies.

JUDGMENT :

(P. Sam Koshy, J.)

The instant is an appeal under Section 374(2) of the Cr.P.C filed by the appellant – accused challenging the judgment of conviction dated 10.02.2016 in Sessions Case No.9 of 2014 passed by the Judge, XVI Additional District and Session Judge, Malkajgiri.

2. Heard Mr. M.K.Ratnam, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. Syed Yasar Mamoon, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondent – State.

3. Vide the impugned judgment, the Trial Court found the appellant guilty for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, ‘IPC’) and upon convicting the appellant, sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life.

4. The case of the prosecution, as per the charge-sheet, is that on 08.09.2013 at 9:00 hours PW.3 (Harichandra Nayak) who is the brother of the Vijay Kumar Nayak (hereinafter, the ‘deceased’) lodged a complaint at Kushaiguda Police Station, Cyberabad, stating that the deceased and the appellant (Dasharath Gadava), who is the father-in-law of the deceased, both hail from same village i.e. Bommel Village, Koraput District of Odisha. At about four years ago the appellant allegedly killed the father of the deceased in an altercation over sharing wages, for which he was jailed for 7 months before being released on bail from Jaipur Police Station. A week days ago, the appellant, deceased and other laborers from Odisha came to Cherlapally to work as Railway laborers under PW.1 (K.Harish) who is a railway contractor. The appellant suspected that the deceased would seek vengeance for his father’s murder and accordingly planned to kill him first. That on 07.09.2013 in the evening the appellant engaged in a violent altercation with the deceased at his workplace, striking him with a stone. Although the deceased managed to escape and reached railway quarters and slept on upstairs of the quarters. Thereafter, the appellant assumed that the deceased will kill him if he survives and as such the appellant planned to kill the deceased. Subsequently, the appellant brought spade and brutally attacked the deceased again by striking him on the head until his death. This whole incident was witnessed by PW.4 and 5.

5. On the same day i.e. on 07.09.2013 at about 6:00 P.M. PW.4 (Hari Hayal) made a phone call to PW.3 and informed that the appellant had killed the deceased. Immediately PW.3 made his journey to Cherlapally from Odisha and found his brother in pool of blood on railway quarters. Accordingly the police authorities registered a complaint as Cr.No.499 of 2013 for the offence under Section 302 of IPC. During the course of investigation, the appellant was apprehended on 11.09.2013 at about 10:00 A.M. and during the interrogation he confessed the crime. Based upon the said confessional statement made by the appellant, the police authorities recovered and seized a spade having blood stains as well as wooden handle which were found near the scene of crime. Further, a chargesheet was filed and the matter was put to trial before the XVI Additional District and Session Judge, Malkajgiri, where the case was registered as S.C.No.9 of 2014.

6. In all, the prosecution examined eight (08) witnesses, marked thirteen (13) Exhibits and also marked two (02) Material Objects (MOs). There was no evidence on behalf of the defence. The Trial Court after recording the statement of the appellant under Section 313 of Cr.P.C and upon hearing the learned counsel appearing on either side finally passed the impugned judgment of conviction which is under challenge in the present appeal.

7. The learned counsel for the appellant challenging the impugned judgment contended on two grounds. Firstly, accordingly to the learned counsel for the appellant a false case had been filed against the appellant due to previous grudge between the de-facto complainant (PW.3) and the appellant. By emphasizing this alleged pre-existing conflict the learned counsel for the appellant attempted to cast a doubt on the cred