NAGARATHNA ALIAS RATHNA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Court has received an unusual request from a female convict - Smt. Nagarathna, whose conviction and sentence of imprisonment for life along with other punishments, for the offences punishable under Sections 302, 120-B, 201 r/w 34 IPC, is pending consideration before this court in this appeal.

(2.) THE request of the convict/appellant is to permit her to withdraw the appeal unconditionally. Last week a similar request was made by another female Smt. Mamatha, who is appellant No. 2 (along with her husband appellant No. 1) in another independent criminal Appeal No. 453/2008. In that case also, the convict/appellant had made a similar prayer to withdraw the appeal only so far as she is concerned.

(3.) CONSIDERING this prayer of Smt. Mamatha as strange especially the emphatic words in the application sent through the jail to the registry of this Court, that she is voluntarily seeking the withdrawal of her appeal and there is no pressure or force from anybody to do so, we directed the learned State public Prosecutor to make enquiry in this regard with the jail authorities and the appellant/convict Smt. Mamata. We were informed that, not only Smt. Mamata, but also all other female life convicts have decided of making similar applications to this Court wherein their respective criminal appeals are pending consideration. Finding this unusual move, in order to satisfy ourselves as to what is going on, we directed the Jail Authorities to produce the convict Smt. Mamata before this court. On appearance and enquiry with her, it was noted that she is bent upon withdrawing the appeal without giving any reason. Though we made it clear to her that, the consequence of withdrawal of her appeal would be resulting in confirmation of her conviction and sentence of life imprisonment along with the other sentences and it may also likely to affect the appeal of her husband, who is a coaccused also, but she was practically not in a mood to listen to either her advocate on record or to us and went on insisting that irrespective of the consequences, her appeal should be permitted to be withdrawn. Left with no alternative, we permitted her to withdraw the appeal, so far as her appeal was concerned.