SHANMUGHAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is from the judgment and order of conviction dated 13.6.2006 of the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Criminal Appeal No. 1303 of 2003 whereby the High Court confirmed the judgment and order of sentence of the learned Trial Judge. The Sessions Judge, Thrissur in Sessions Case No. 224 of 2002 convicted the appellant under Sections 323/302 I.P.C and gave him life imprisonment. No separate sentence was given for Section 323. The material facts as appearing from the judgments are that one Raji, wife of the appellant died as a result of poisoning on having been administered cyanide on the night of 2nd March, 1992. In this case, there are certain admitted facts:

(2.) This happened couple of weeks prior to the death of the deceased. It is also evident from the evidence that the appellant developed suspicion about the character of the deceased and tortured her in the past. There is evidence of the deceased suffering from burn injuries from cigarette buts inflicted by the appellant. Therefore the relationship between the couple was strained. PW 7 Dr. N. Rajaram, Lecturer in Forensic medicine, Medical College, Thrissur who conducted the post mortem examination on the body of the deceased found the following injuries on the body of the deceased. The injuries are set out herein below:

(3.) The next submission of the learned counsel is that there is no direct evidence and the entire case is based on the circumstantial evidence. Since this is a case of circumstantial evidence, the prosecution can only succeed in proving the guilt by the appellant by showing that there is no gap in the chain of circumstances proved by it.