JUDGEMENT
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(1.)This Appeal is preferred by both the accused, who have been convicted for an offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and were also ordered to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/each and in default, to suffer simple imprisonment for six months each.
(2.)The appellants were tried by the learned Principal Sessions Judge, West Godavari at Eluru, in S.C.No. 128 of 2006, for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code.
The case of the prosecution is that, on 9-6-2005, P.W. 2 and the deceased have gone to the house of one Mr. Yesubabu, father of the accused, for attending to painting and whitewash work of his newly constructed house. At about 11,30 a.m. P.W. 10, younger sister of the accused and daughter of Mr. Yesubabu, cried out for her brothers as she has noticed the deceased peeping into the bathroom while she was taking bath. The accused caught hold of the deceased and thrashed him using a painting brush. P.W. 2, who was attending to the whitewash work on the front side of the building, immediately rushed and tried to intervene so as to rescue the deceased from the hands of the accused, but however, he has been pushed away. P.W. 13, who was a neighbor of Mr. Yesubabu, upon hearing the shouts emanating from Yesubabu's house, intervened in the matter and tried to pacify the accused by suggesting that the father of the deceased be summoned before further action in the matter is undertaken. She has pushed the deceased into a room on the southern side of the house, which has a door, and bolted its door from outside. She was waiting for the father of the deceased to arrive by sitting beneath a Guava tree. However, before P.W. 2 could inform and fetch P.W. 1, the father of the deceased, P.W.3 another painter, who whoks with P.W. 1 together with the elder brother of the deceased, have reached the house of Mr. Yesubabu more with a view to ascertain the progress of the painting work under taken by P.W. 2 and the deceased, there. Coming to know of the events, it is the elder brother of the deceased, who opened the door of the room, where upon he found the deceased lying on the floor. There was a rope hanging to a hook of the ceiling of the room and another portion of the rope, which got snapped, was lying besides the body of the deceased. In the mean time, P.W.1 also arrived at the scene and he has set the investigation into motion by lodging Ex. P-1 FIR,
In support of the prosecution case, 17 witnesses have been examined and 19 documents have been got marked as exhibits.
(3.)Excepting P.Ws. 2, 7, 13, 14 and 15, we need not have to brother much about the rest of the witnesses and their evidences, as some of them are treated as hostile and the evidence of the remaining witnesses is not so material of our inquiry.
P.W. 2 has specifically asserted that it is he and the deceased who had gone to the house of Mr. Yesubabu, the father of the accused, for attending to painting and white washing work of his newly constructed house and that he was attending to white washing work on the front side, while the deceased was doing painting work on the rear side and that he has heard the cries of the sister of the accused calling out for her brothers by shouting "Annayya" (brother). P.W. 2, further asserted that he had seen both the accused beating the deceased using a paintbrush, M.O. 5. When he intervened, with a view to separate the deceased from the accused, he was pushed aside. He has also deposed that P.W. 13 prevented the accused from beating the deceased further and it is she, who pushed the deceased into the room and bolted the door from outside. He further stated that at her behest he has proceeded to fetch the father of the deceased, P.W. 1. It took quite sometime for him to get the message to P.W. 1 and by the time he returned to the scene, more the one hour or one hour fifteen minutes time has passed.