(1.) An illiterate and unsophisticated lady from an interior and undeveloped area in the district of Sundargarh, the petitioner stands indicated of an offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder coming under section 304 Part I of the Indian Penal Code (for short, the Code), convicted there under and sentence to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of eight years by- the Court of Session ;.which has accepted the case of the prosecution that during the night of the l7th/l8th April, 1979, the appellant killed her husband Gangu Munda (hereinafter referred to as the deceased) by means of ax: axe (M.O.1) in their house of which occupants were the deceased, the appellant and child aged about three years. The appellant, it was alleged, had made an extra judicial confession first before her neighbor Dimbu Munda (P.W. 2) who had come to the scene after hearing a bulla in the house when he saw the appellant at the door of the house holding M.O.I with the dead body of her deceased husband lying in the house near the door with the child nearby and then before Rama Munda (P.W. 3) and Birsingh Munda (P.W. 4) who had been called to the scence by P.W. 2. On the day following, P.Ws. 2 to 4 went to the police station at Bonaigarh where P.W. 2 lodged the first information report (Ext. 9) on the basis of which investigation was taken up by the Officer-in-charge of the police station (P.W. 7) and on the basis of a charge sheet placed on the completion of investigation, the appellant stood charged under section 302 of the Code.
(2.) To bring home the charge to her, seven witnesses had been examined for the prosecution of whom P. Ws. 2 to 4 had testified about the extrajudicial confession said to have been made by the appellant before them during the night of occurrence. P.W. 1 was the doctor who had conducted the autopsy over the dead body of the deceased after its identification by the police Constable (P.W. 5), P.W.6 was the doctor who had examined the appellant and had noticed a haematoma on the right parietal region of the head and a swelling around the right ear which, according to him, could be caused by M.O.1 within twenty-four hours prior to his examination on the 18th April, 1979 and P. W. 7 had investigated into the case.
(3.) The appellant had pleaded not guilty to the charge and had, in her statement recorded by the trial court, denied to have killed her husband and to have made an extrajudicial confession before P.W. 2 to 4 and had asserted that those witnesses had falsely testified against her and they bad killed her husband. With no means to engage an advocate of her own, a defence counsel had been engaged at the cost of the State. As would appear from the statement made by the appellant before the trial court referred to above and the suggestions made to some of the prosecution witnesses during their cross-examination in order to show that the appellant had a right of private defence of her person, the defence of the appellant was not quite consistent from time to time. The suggestion made to P.W. 2 was that the deceased, by means of Budia (axe), was attempting ,to deal blows on her and at that time, this weapon struck the deceased when she was snatching it away. It was suggested to P.W. 3 that the deceased had attempted to murder her and her child. The suggestion made to P.W.4 was that the deceased, on returning home, raised the axe to deal blows on the appellant when she snatched away the axe and dealt the blow on the deceased. She had not examined any witness on her behalf.