GYARSIBAI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has been convicted by the Sessions Judge of Shajapur of an offence under Section 302, Penal Code, for the murder of her three children and also of an offence under Section 309, Penal Code, for an attempt to commit suicide. She has been sentenced to transportation for life under Section 302 Penal Code, and to six months simple imprisonment under Section 309, Penal Code. Both these sentences have been directed to run concurrently. She has now preferred this appeal from Jail against the convictions and sentences.

(2.) THE facts of this case are very simple. The prosecution alleged that the appellant, her children, her husband Jagannath and her sister-inlaw Kaisar Bai used to reside together. There were constant quarrels between the appellant and her sister-in-law and very often Jagannath used to slap the appellant for picking up a quarrel with her sister-inlaw Kaisar Bai. It is alleged that one such quarrel took place on the morning of 14. 8. 1951 when Jagannath was away from his home. In this quarrel Kaisar Bai asked the appellant to leave the house. Thereupon, the appellant left the house, taking her three children aged 7 years, 5 years and 1? years and saying that on account of her sister-in-law she would jump into a well. Soon after, the appellant went to a well in the village and threw herself into the well along with her three children. A few hours after, some inhabitants of the village found Gyarasibai supporting herself on an edge of the well and the three children dead in the well. The appellant admitted before the Committing Magistrate as well as before the Sessions Judge that she jumped into the well together with her children on account of her sister-in-law Kaisar Bai's harassment.

(3.) THE facts have been amply established by the prosecution evidence. From the statement of Kaisar Bai and Narayan it is Clear that on the morning of the day ox occurrence, there was a quarrel between Kaisar Bai and Gyarasi Bai, and during this quarrel when Kaisar Bai asked the appellant to leave the house, she left the house with her three children, saying that she would jump into a well. Kaisar Bai also admits that some times Jagannath used to give two or three slaps to the appellant for quarrelling with her. The other prosecution witnesses deposed to the recovery of the bodies of three children and to the rescue of the appellant. There is no eye-witness of the fact that the appellant jumped down the well herself together with her three children. But from the statements of Kaisar Bai, Narayan and the statement of the appellant herself before the Committing Magistrate and the Sessions Judge, I am satisfied that the version given by the appellant in her own statement is correct and that she jumped into the well herself along with her three children in order to escape harassment at the hands of her sister-in-law Kaisar Bai.