ABDUL LATIF Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a criminal appeal from jail. The appellant stands convicted under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, for causing culpable homicide amounting to murder of a child aged about 5 years and sentenced to imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rupees 2,000/ - in default, to suffer further prison term for another two years. The indigent accused must thank his star for the potent free legal aids provided to him.

(2.) THE prosecution case is that on 17.12.1977 Rehana Begam, aged about 5 years was found missing. There was a lot of frantic search for the missing child. At last, they inquired of the accused, who was "lunatic", the whereabouts of the child. Thus confronted by P.W. 9 Ali Ahmed, father of the child, the accused declared that he had sent the child to God. It is alleged that he made similar statements to others that he had deposited the child into a pond. Consequent upon his statement the dead body of the girl was recovered from a nearby tank. P.W. 9, Ali Ahmed, father of the child, lodged the Ejahar wherein he made a positive statement that the accused Abdul Latif a lunatic, threw his daughter Rehana into the pond, and, her dead body was recovered therefrom. The police investigated the case, arrested the accused, submitted charge -sheet under Section 302, I.P.C. The accused stood his trial before the Court of Sessions. During the course of trial as many as 11 witnesses were examined in support of the prosecution case. No defence witness was examined. The learned Sessions Judge convicted and sentenced the accused as alluded above.

(3.) THE following indubitable facts glean from the prosecution evidence : (i) That the accused was portrayed as "a lunatic" in the First Information Report; (ii) When the act of causing the death was attributed to a mentally deranged person, naturally, the prosecution was incapable to uncover any terrestrial "motive" of the accused. It had to rest upon "a motiveless case"; (iii) P.W. Sayed Ali, affirmed on oath that the accused "was mad at the time of the occurrence. When his head became off he did not know anything". The statements bear out that - (a) the accused was deranged at the time of the occurrence, and (b) the accused had period when he was mad, bereft of reason or incapable of knowing the nature of his acts; (iv) P.W. 5 Nasib Ali not only confirmed that the accused was mad but revealed that "he took meal and slept well," an eerie conduct of a human being. It established that the accused was oblivious of the upshot of his act which resulted in the death of a young colleen.