The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the trial court’s verdict of convicting advocate S.L. Rajappa, who had killed a woman lawyer by stabbing her multiple times with a knife in the corridor of the High Court on July 8, 2010, and the life sentence imposed on him.
A Division Benchdelivered the verdict while dismissing an appeal filed by Rajappa, who was around 25 years old when the incident occurred, questioning the trial court’s separate orders of October 2018 convicting the accused on the charge of murder and attempt to commit suicide.
“...the prosecution has placed cogent, consistent, reliable and trust-worthy evidence, such as oral, ocular and documentary evidence, which have clearly proved the case of the prosecution beyond all reasonable doubts that the accused has committed the murder of Naveena and also attempted to commit suicide” by consuming insecticide mixed alcohol and stabbing himself consuming the Bench observed.
Answering the claim of the convict that a third person assaulted him and Naveena, the Bench said the prosecution has “clearly proved beyond all reasonable doubts that the accused has done the act of stabbing the deceased Naveena several times on vital parts of her body in a broad daylight on the corridors of this High Court with a clear intention of causing her death.”
To arrive at this conclusion the Bench relied on the statements of eyewitnesses – Senior Advocate H. Subramanya Jois and his colleague Ranganatha Jois, who had witnessed the incident of Rajappa stabbing Naveena in the front of Court Hall No. 4 of the High Court’s corridor on first floor. The court also relied on statements by another advocate, Azeemuddin, who had seen Rajappa inflicting self-injuries using the knife and hiding inside a gents’ toilet.
His intention to kill Naveena and later commit suicide was ascertained by the court with a ‘death note’ recovered from his pocket as forensic study had established Rajappa’s handwriting and signature on the note.
Rajappa was in a relationship with Naveena. They both were from a law college in Kolar. Though Naveena had initially agreed to marry him, she later changed her mind. This angered Rajappa, who misunderstood that Naveena had refused to marry him as she had become close to another advocate in whose office she was working, and decided to kill her and later commit suicide.